300 implicated in massive unemployment benefit fraud

Courts in Jerez

JEREZ The courts in Jerez are involved in a large investigation into a massive fraud against the Social Security treasury. Over the last few weeks the Guardia Civil has put at the disposal of the court over 300 people who are either arrested or charged with various offences. The main scheme is allegedly obtaining illegal unemployment benefits, which would account for the large number of people supposedly involved. The MO probably included setting up 'ghost' companies with little if any activity, but which 'employed' people and then made them redundant so they could qualify for benefits without being legally entitled to them. Similar schemes>>>have been uncovered in many parts of the country, but locally, the one that made most headlines involved the wife of bullfighter Jesulín de Ubrique's wife, María José Campanario, and her mother, who were involved in claiming false pension money for themselves and other and whose sentence is presently under appeal at the Supreme Court. This case came to light when a company in another case, against the national tax authority, Hacienda, was found to have issued and accepted false bills from businesses all over the province. Others have come up over the years, including some against false contracts for European funds, charges for employment scheme courses set up by an equally false union, SIT, and others, all of which are currently under investigation.