Civil servants arrested over pensions scam
Police have arrested five women, including three former employees of the State General Accounting Office, and one man on suspicion of diverting money destined for pensions into their own bank accounts.
According to officers, the three public servants identified pensioners who had died or whose monthly retirement pay had been suspended and then arranged for this money to be transferred to their own accounts or ones opened by their accomplices.
In the case of pensioners who had died, they changed the addresses recorded on the accounting office’s computer system so that the families of the deceased would not be aware the pensions were still being paid.
Police said that the six suspects operated in two teams. One had been active since October 2004 and the other began its activities in October 2011. They allegedly stole almost 550,000 euros of taxpayers’ money.
