If this situation were akin to a boxing bout, the confrontation between the Bulgarian fraudsters and the UK government would have been called off ages ago.

Upon their arrival in the UK, the group of five swiftly exploited the Department for Work and Pensions, siphoning off an astonishing £50 million through its inadequately protected systems.

The ease with which they managed to deplete public funds is troubling in itself.

However, what unfolded afterward is sure to leave diligent taxpayers questioning the point of their daily grind.

The saying “crime doesn’t pay” seems lost on Gyunesh Ali, Galina Nikolova, Tsvetka Todorova, Patritsia Paneva, and Stoyan Stoyanov.

In 2024, these five admitted to orchestrating Britain’s largest benefits fraud to date, yet received such lenient sentences that all but one have already been released from prison.

Not that their incarceration was unduly taxing.

Todorova, 54, found her time inside the country’s biggest women’s prison such a breeze she compared it to a ‘vacation’, boasting about getting a manicure and having her hair done.

To add further insult to injury, what has now emerged is that of the £54million stolen, the gang will only have to hand back £2million – not enough even to cover the Legal Aid bill they ran up.

Investigators say the rest of the money was either spent on high-living or is irretrievable.

Yet sources in Bulgaria told the Daily Mail this week that part of the problem is that, having been slow to detect the fraud, the British authorities failed to act to prevent the criminals hiding their assets, much of which was likely invested in property.

‘They rushed to launch the operation to arrest the fraudsters and did not inform us in advance,’ a law enforcement official there said. ‘We could have made a preliminary seizure of their properties here in Bulgaria and only then would they have detained them.

‘They did not do this and left it possible for them to dispose of these properties with proxy persons during their arrest.

‘So even if there were any properties in their name, they have severed any direct connection and the owners are now other people. Today these assets cannot be found and the fraudsters’ connection to them cannot be proven.’

For example Ali, the scam’s mastermind who once filmed himself throwing a wad of £20 notes into the air as an unknown woman scrabbled around on her hands and knees picking them up, is believed to have invested his ill-gotten gains in property and crypto-currency when he fled the UK following his initial arrest.

The Daily Mail can reveal that while back in Bulgaria, the 35-year-old set up a real estate investment company in the country’s second largest city, Plovdiv.

While confiscation hearings for Todorova and Ali are yet to be held, we know what the authorities wanted to recover from the others – and the reality of what they will get.

Prosecutors had wanted to recover around £4million from Nikolova, 40. But they could only prove she benefited to the tune of £2.8million from the fraud and then only managed to identify assets worth £940,000. Of that figure £750,000 in cash was found hidden in a mattress and stuffed behind a fridge at her home.

Stoyanov, her 29 year old partner, with whom she enjoyed lavish spa breaks in Manchester and luxury holidays to Madrid, Turkey and a five-star beach resort on the Black Sea, was told to repay just £7,650 despite pocketing at least £162,950.

Meanwhile Paneva, 28, will have to hand over less than £100,000 of the £225,000 she made, the court was told.

Only once they have paid back the money, can the Bulgarians finally be deported.

To that background it’s hard to imagine what else could go wrong in this deeply depressing tale. But as the Daily Mail discovered this week, the farce rumbles on.

Speaking from her rented flat in south-east London, Todorova revealed that, despite her crimes, since December she had been allowed to start claiming benefits again – £200 a month to supplement the £1,300 her husband, who was not involved in the scam, is understood to get in Universal Credit payments.

‘My husband is depressed,’ she said. ‘I am depressed as well. I have had high blood pressure because of the case. My husband also has a lot of back pain. I don’t have a right to work. My benefits account was closed, now it is opening again.’

Unsurprisingly, she said she was in no hurry to go home.

‘I do not want to leave Britain,’ she added. ‘My family is here. I love it here, it is good and has helped me. I think I will stay in Britain. They cannot push me [out]. They cannot force me.’

But that all changed after the Daily Mail highlighted the matter with the DWP. It cancelled the payments and ordered Todorova to pay back the money she had received. As a result of our intervention, by Wednesday Todorova had dramatically changed her tune.

‘I want to be deported,’ she now told our reporter. ‘I can’t live with the distress. This case has made me crazy. I got restrictions about benefits.’

What the Daily Mail has also established is that should she return to Bulgaria, she won’t be homeless. The couple own a two-bedroom house there worth £90,000, which they have in the past used for holidays.

Todorova claims that because it is jointly owned in her and her husband’s names the British authorities ‘can’t touch it’.

Whether or not that turns out to be true only time and a further court hearing will tell. But if the past history of this case is anything to go by, then her belief that she can continue to play the system is probably not misplaced.

What makes the chain of events all the more painful is the fact that having been welcomed to this country, the perpetrators of the scam proceeded to take advantage of everything it had to offer before then setting about ripping it off.

A number had sick relatives or children who, since arriving in Britain, have made extensive use of the NHS.

The industrial-scale fraud ran between 2016 and 2021 and involved 6,000 fake benefits claims.

It was originally concocted by Ali, who arrived in the UK in 2010 and was given indefinite leave to remain. It was joined by Nikolova, who arrived in 2012 and also had indefinite leave, and also her partner Stoyan Stoyanov, who arrived in 2020 on limited leave.

The couple then split from Ali to carry out their own fraud with the help of Paneva, 28, their sentencing hearing was told. Todorova was also running her own similar ‘business’, with documents linking her to Nikolova found at her home when she was arrested.

The fraud targeted Universal Credit, which provided benefits to ‘settled’ EU citizens living and working in the UK.

Claims were mostly made on behalf of real people – nearly always Bulgarian nationals – who were complicit in the dishonest activity and who, after the organisers took their cut, would pocket cash from claims made on their behalf. Other claims were made in respect of individuals whose identities had been stolen.

Operating from three ‘benefits factories’ across London, the fraudsters offered a bespoke range of services.

These included fictitious tenancy agreements, counterfeit payslips and forged letters from landlords and employers. Even letters from GPs and schools were fabricated, claiming individuals were registered at GP practices and, in some cases, that children – who either did not exist or who were living in Bulgaria – were here and being educated in the UK.

Success for customers was almost guaranteed, with fully prepared ‘benefits packs’ available to buy containing all the necessary paperwork.

Even if the claims were initially rejected by the DWP, the fraudsters would try again and again until they were granted.

Advertising largely through word of mouth, the service they offered was so popular that at times a queue of 30 to 40 people formed outside a mini-supermarket in Wood Green. Customers would walk through the shop to be seen in an office at the back.

Given the scale of the fraud, the failure of the British authorities to spot what was going on over a five year period is damning.

As the sentencing judge observed: ‘That it was able to continue for so long undetected is indicative of a woefully inadequate checking system which was then in use at the DWP, which failed to identify repeated use of the same names, addresses and telephone numbers.’

Indeed, it was a Bulgarian policeman who finally raised the alarm after he became suspicious about the flood of money coming into the city of Sliven, in the foothills of the Balkans.

Inspector Vassil Panayotov noticed properties were being built, expensive cars bought and residents parading around in designer clothing.

His investigations revealed that thousands of people were receiving up to £2,500 a month in benefits from the UK.

Having alerted the British embassy in Sofia, in May 2021 a series of raids were conducted across north London.

‘The money coming into Sliven transformed the area,’ said Inspector Panayotov, who believes the fraud ran into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Following extradition proceedings to bring Ali back to Britain, the five eventually pleaded guilty in 2024. Ali was jailed for seven years and three months, Nikolova eight years, Stoyanov four years, and Paneva, three years and two months in jail.

Todorova was given three years for her involvement but walked out of court on licence having served 625 days on remand.

Now only Ali now remains behind bars.

All have deportation orders in place but on release were placed on immigration bail while confiscation proceedings were launched under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Failure to repay the sums ordered could see them returned to jail.

But the limitations facing the authorities were highlighted by the case at Wood Green Court last month.

There prosecutor Gareth Munday outlined the efforts of the Crown Prosecution Service and the DWP to recover the money.

He explained that the total amount of money stolen was not the amount directly obtained by the gang, who took a ‘cut’ while processing claims for others.

Mr Munday said: ‘A defendant cannot be held liable under the [Proceeds of Crime Act] for losses they themselves did not obtain… although the public may hear a loss figure of many millions, the benefit was much lower.’

Some of the claims Nikolova was processing, however, related to people who did not actually exist, the court heard.

‘If money was obtained from the Department for Work and Pensions for people who never existed, where did that money go?’ Judge David Aaronberg KC asked the prosecution.

Mr Munday said that some of the money had been moved into bank accounts ‘created for the purpose of those claims’ but they had been unable to link them to Nikolova or any of the other defendants.

Asked where the ‘millions’ that had not been recovered from Nikolova had gone, the prosecutor said the ‘difference has been spent’ and there was no realistic prospect of her being able to pay it back. Several properties in Bulgaria had been seized, he added, and would need to be sold. He accepted that Nikolova admitted she had moved ‘money in cash overseas’.

A CPS spokesperson said that where criminals are found to have additional available assets in the future, the CPS can ask the court to increase the amount of money to be repaid.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman added: ‘We take all fraud and error seriously and last year we saved an estimated £25billion through our prevention and detection activities.

‘This was a sophisticated, targeted attack on the benefits system designed for personal gain. We have brought these people to justice, but to do so took a great deal of time, effort and investigation from our counter-fraud team.

‘In this case, action is ongoing to recover further money.’

At the moment, it is unclear whether any of the Bulgarians have paid up – or been kicked out of the country.

Paneva remains in the UK. Approached by a journalist at her home in London, she closed the door and retreated inside.

‘All she does is stand outside the front door smoking,’ said one neighbour. ‘She’s always got her dressing gown on. That is all she does.’

As for Nikolova, there was no sign of her at her former address.

But, last month, she appeared to be pleased at how the confiscation hearing had concluded.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I get to go home. I am very excited.’

An interesting sentiment to express.

Todorova, meanwhile, refused to apologise for her crimes, instead insisting she was innocent – despite having pleaded guilty in court.

‘I was only helping,’ she said. ‘They have made a mistake with me.’

When, of course, the truth is that the only mistake the authorities made was ever letting her and her co-conspirators into this country in the first place.