Making it rain with 20 notes, trips to see stately homes and Aston Villa: How Britain’s biggest-EVER benefits fraudsters lived the high life after gang plundered 54 million from UK taxpayers [Video]

05:55 EDT 10 Apr 2024 , updated 08:07 EDT 10 Apr 2024

A gang of shameless Bulgarian grifters who plundered £54million from UK taxpayers in the biggest benefits con in British history used their ill-gotten gains to fund a lavish lifestyle. 

During a four-and-a-half-year spree, the gang of five crooks used a combination of fake identities and real customers to make roughly 6,000 fraudulent Universal Credit claims, operating out of three ‘benefits factories’ in north London.

They splashed out their cash on designer clothes, watches and even a high-end Audi sports car. On social media they shamelessly flaunted expensive spa breaks and posted snaps of them holidaying abroad. 

In one post, two of the fraudsters – Galina Nikolova, 38 and her 27-year-old lover Stoyan Stoyanov – boasted about a luxurious trip to Turkey, where they visited Istanbul’s famed Grand Bazaar, posing together in designer DKNY shirts.

The pair of con artists also shared a snap canoodling on a trip to a luxury …