A family defrauded about £2.7 million from the government’s furlough scheme during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, transferring half of the money to their bank accounts in Romania, a jury has been told.
Six people from the same family “exploited the scheme – and real workers – to claim furlough payments, pocketing the sums received for themselves”, Janet Weeks, prosecuting told Hove Crown Court.
Miss Weeks said: “This was a direct steal of all of our money – taxpayers’ money – intended to keep people going and to keep companies going during a national emergency.”
The family ran five companies, with most of the fraudulent funds claimed and funnelled through two of them, recruitment agencies known as Green Cross Recruitment Ltd and Green Cross Recruitment South.
The agencies, based in the Eastbourne area, supplied permanent and temporary nurses and carers to organisations across coastal East Sussex from Brighton to the Hastings area.
Genuine clients included Swanborough House, in Brighton, the jury was told. But those running the care home “had no knowledge” of any claims made in the name of workers supplied to the home.
Miss Weeks said: “Swanborough House did not furlough any workers.”
She told the jury: “The claims made by all five companies were all submitted in the names of genuine individuals.
“They actually worked at some time or another for the companies or had been former employees who, in the main, actually worked for the recruitment companies or had been former employees.
“Care workers generally worked during the pandemic. The care industry was one of the sectors that largely had to provide services throughout the national lockdowns.
“All of those traced in respect of all five of the companies had no idea their identities were being used by the same recruitment agencies to massively defraud and exploit the furlough scheme.”
Miss Weeks said that the care workers in question had never received any furlough pay from any of the five companies – or any other company. Many worked throughout the pandemic, often in highly pressured and very difficult conditions.
Those who were legitimately furloughed were paid 80 per cent of their salaries, with their employers claiming the money from the government.
The six defendants are alleged to have fraudulently claimed furlough funding in the name 89 people, including themselves, and spanning the five suspect companies.
The defendants are Laurentiu Dogaru, 41, and his 36-year-old ex-wife Mariana Dogaru, also known as Bianca, of Ramsay Way, Eastbourne, Laurentiu Dogaru’s brother Cristian Dogaru, 36, and his partner Gabriela-Iulia Ciorobea, 35, the Dogaru brothers’ mother Niculina Neagu, 62, and Mariana Dogaru’s mother Aurica Botosaru, 57.
All six deny the charges – eight in total – which all relate to fraud and money laundering over about 18 months in in 2021 and 2022.
The trial, before Judge Christine Henson, continues.
