A married couple swindled £630,000 by claiming benefits and dodging tax while building up a ‘Monopoly-style’ property empire, a court has heard.
Steve and Kim Benstock from Essex made fake claims to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) but failed to declare their significant earnings to HMRC.
They used the ill-gotten cash to live a ‘somewhat lavish lifestyle’, taking trips to Thailand and the Caribbean and buying a holiday home in Fuerteventura.
Snaresbrook Crown Court heard the grandparents committed benefit fraud by claiming means-tested benefits they were not entitled to from July 2002 to July 2019.
It was said Steve Benstock, 62, lived a ‘double life’,
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