Synopsis
'Benefit Thieves' contains 30 gripping tales from my 12 years' experience of investigating benefit fraud. In this book I disclose how I solve some intriguing cases. All the stories are based on true events but have been fictionalised. And because my life is still under threat, I have to use a pseudonym, 'Six Hundred'.
In one case I am chased by a Porsche 911 turbo. In another a wife sleeps in the same bed as her mute husband. He's been dead for over three months! I reveal how I weigh up the pros and cons before making a citizen's arrest. If I get it wrong it might wreck another specialist investigation into a multi-million pound counterfeit order book racket.
Other cases range from an attempt to make an extra £10 through forgery to a swindle aimed at gaining £250,000 in benefit when a couple get divorced. There are also multi-million pound systematic frauds, big enough to embarrass the government, including one that the press were not allowed to print in 1983. I describe cases no one else would take on. A man known to associate with the notorious Richardson brothers loses his house because of my investigation.
Each chapter has its own outcome but there are some common characters: people that I forge sound and trusting relationships with. Often we work together at the fringe of the rules.
In the introduction I explain how a known criminal threatens my life after I expose him. Because of me this villain was sent to prison and lost over £4m of stolen property. The book begins: 'As I start to write this, I pause, putting my open hands over my face only to pull them down and clasp them in front of me as if praying. I am not religious.' The penultimate chapter describes the last straw when this character comes out of prison and I investigate him again. Sixteen years later my life is still at risk.
The major theme which runs through the book is my relentless pursuit of benefit fraud. The book finishes with, 'What Drove Me', drilling down into my innermost feelings and values.