The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, better known as Kela, is charged with administering the state’s labyrinth system of social benefits and services. Typical forms of Kela assistance are parental, study, sickness, disability and unemployment allowances.
The news outlet Lännen Media reports Saturday that over 1,000 applications each year are reported to the police by Kela, as they are suspected of being submitted under false pretences.
The most common fraudulent applications seek to gain unemployment, housing or study allowances from the state.
Lännen Media reports that the police, prosecutors and the justice system have handled over 3,400 reports of a suspected benefits fraud that have been submitted by Kela between 2013 and 2015. Most of these have resulted in the authorities pressing charges and a conviction. District courts have upheld the charges in 2,600 such cases and rejected just 123.
Charges despite payback
The news agency says that the average sum that was fraudulently accepted in these cases exceeded 4,000 euros.
Even if the guilty party pays back the undue money that was granted, Kela can still submit a report to the police. In such cases, Kela considers whether the person in question had perhaps intentionally not reported a change in circumstances or was being dishonest.
The Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle has earlier reported that the unemployment benefit is the state allowance most widely abused in Finland, with some people falsely accepting tens of thousands of euros in aid from the government.
