A serial fraudster is facing legal action after collecting more than €75,000 in social benefits he was not entitled to, the Times of Malta has learnt.

Government sources said the man, whose identity could not be revealed, was caught abusing seven benefits, including different pension schemes, as well as disability and sickness assistance in recent weeks.

A Social Solidarity Ministry spokeswoman said that the Benefit Fraud Investigation Department had traced the abuse back to 2006, the year the department was first set up. It is not known whether the abuse had been going on for longer.

The spokeswoman said that the fraudster’s case was one of several recently concluded inquiries by the benefit fraud investigators, which were now taking legal action against him.

Benefit fraud is illegal in terms of the Social Security Act. Those who receive State aid when they are not entitled to normally face an administrative fine and are also made to pay back one-and-a-half times the amount they received. Abusers could also face up to a year in prison.

The spokeswoman said the government was clamping down on benefit fraud, with nearly €4 million worth of funds identified as misappropriated every year.

Some €16 million worth of fraudulent benefits have been paid since 2010.

These, the spokeswoman explained, were normally payments of a few thousand euros. Some 600 cases of minor benefit fraud are uncovered every year.

The majority of abusers, she said, were wrongly receiving unemployment payments despite being in regular employment.

€4 million

- the total identified as misappropriated every year

The government has already spent more than €400 million on social benefits so far this year.

Despite a rigorous means testing system in place, the spokeswoman said the majority of those abusing this system had originally been eligible for funds and would simply not inform the authorities that they had found employment. More than 3,200 people have been apprehended doing this in the past decade.

Some 100 people were struck off the unemployment register last year. Most of them had not declared their employment, while a small number had continuously refused to enter State-funded training.

A request by this newspaper to interview the benefit fraud detectives was not accepted by the government, and the spokeswoman said the department did not want to blow the investigators’ cover.

The department is not tasked with recovering the money itself and is instead focused on uncovering abusers. It is then the Department of Social Security’s responsibility to try to recover the funds, together with pending fines. Questions on how much had been recovered were not replied to by the time of writing.