326,000 euros in damages

Welfare fraud explodes in Styria

A Styrian couple divorced 12 times.

(Bild: APA/dpa/Friso Gentsch)

A couple from Graz scammed more than 326,000 euros by marrying 13 times just so that the 73-year-old could collect her widow's pension during the divorce period. Over the past ten years, the number of benefit frauds in Styria has exploded, with losses running into the millions!

Is welfare fraud made too easy? Apparently so, if you look at the Styrian figures. While 55 cases were reported in 2014, the number increased almost sevenfold to 371 offenses in 2023. The damage caused to Styrians runs into the millions.

One striking example is a retired couple from Graz who earned an extra 326,000 euros over more than 35 years by repeatedly marrying and divorcing. How was this possible? After the death of her first husband in 1981, the woman received a widow's pension. She then married her second husband for the first time in October 1982 and divorced him for the first time in 1988. 

"Marriage was never broken"
In total, there were twelve divorces and 13 marriages - the couple are currently remarried. The case was triggered by a ruling by the Supreme Court last March after the woman from Graz contested a negative pension insurance decision regarding her widow's pension.

At that time, the Supreme Court ruled that the repeated marriage and subsequent divorce from the same spouse was an abuse of rights if the marriage had never broken down and the divorces had only taken place in order to establish a claim to a widow's pension.

Couple had a model marriage
Investigations by the Graz Criminal Investigation Department, which followed, confirmed the suspicion of fraud, especially as all the people interviewed confirmed that the couple had never actually been separated for more than 35 years and were in fact in a marriage of convenience. Those close to the couple were also unaware of the repeated marriages and divorces. The 73-year-old and her husband refused to testify and both are being charged with suspected serious commercial fraud.

Millions in losses for taxpayers
More and more people are deceiving and disguising themselves in order to collect social benefits such as unemployment benefit, minimum income or care allowance. Austria has been battling a rising wave of social benefit fraud for years, which has now reached record levels and costs the state and taxpayers millions every year.

A look at the suspected fraudsters shows that around 70 percent are foreigners. While the proportion of nationals/foreigners was still balanced in 2017, the proportion of people without Austrian citizenship now dominates. The largest group in 2023 were Ukrainian nationals, followed by Afghan, Syrian and Serbian nationals.

Strongest annual balance
For several years now, the police have therefore been focusing on stepping up the fight against this fraud phenomenon nationwide by introducing their own "Solbe Task Force". Last year, investigators were able to track down around 4650 suspects nationwide and uncovered losses of around 25.5 million euros, the highest annual total since the task force was set up.