Covid-19 Fraud Losses in the UK: The Long read

Enough to plug the gap in the Chancellor’s books

On 8 April 2020, we questioned whether covid restrictions were too late to stop the bug and just in time to wreck the economy. Nostra culpa. We had not reckoned on repeated lockdowns, the patchwork of restrictions and what must be the cleverest bunch of crooks on earth. What follows is a sad tale of taxpayer rip-off based on all the evidence we could find - the ending leaves a bitter taste.

Once the World Health Organisation declared the pandemic on 11 March 2020, governments worldwide focused on measures to sustain their economies. In this article, we focus on the measures taken by the UK government since March 2020, some of which are still active, and we examine the evidence of fraud. Part of our efforts is to understand the effects of human interventions during the pandemic.

Fraud is a criminal activity with the evident intent of stealing funds from the public purse by subterfuge. Fraud is different from waste resulting from poor accountancy or incompetence because the motive is diff…