The fight against social fraud raised 385.5 million euros last year. This amounts to an increase of 15 percent, or 50.5 million euros, compared to a year earlier. This is evident from figures from the Social Intelligence and Investigation Service (SIOD), reports Minister of Labor Pierre-Yves Dermagne (PS).
The proceeds from the fight against social fraud amounted to exactly 385,497,459 euros. In 2022 that was just over 334 million euros. According to Minister Dermagne, who is responsible for the file together with his colleagues Frank Vandenbroucke and David Clarinval, this is due to sustained effort and extra efforts.
For example, there is increasing cooperation with sectors that are sensitive to social fraud. Just last week, plans against unfair competition and social dumping were concluded for eight sectors, three of which were new sectors. There were also 280 new recruits at the inspection services and a new social criminal code is ready with heavier penalties for some serious infringements.
The services generated most of their revenue from fraud with social security contributions, recovered Covid aid, failure to submit social security returns, the fight against bogus self-employed people and fictitious employees and, finally, from monitoring subcontracting and social debts in the construction and meat sectors.
“The fact that our approach works is evident from the fact that income from combating social fraud increases year after year,” Dermagne responds. “We again achieved record yields for 2023, and the expectation is that this will also be the case in 2024.”
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