Cash lost to Covid fraud is TEN times more than UK’s biggest ever heists COMBINED

CASH lost to Covid fraud is TEN times greater than the biggest heists in UK history put together.

The top 10 most infamous robberies – including the Great Train Robbery and the Graff Diamonds Theft– bagged crooks a whopping £1.1bn.

Alamy

Ronnie Biggs took part in the infamous Great Train Robbery which stole £2.6m from a Royal Mail train[/caption]

PA

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has come under fire from Labour over the handling of Covid fraud[/caption]

Reuters

An eye-watering £11.8bn has been lost to Covid fraud[/caption]

But this is dwarfed by the £11.8bn lost to Covid fraud.

The revelation came as new stats show benefits fraud and dud overpayments has hit a record £8.6billion.

The 10 heists analysed by Labour include the 1963 Great Train Robbery, where £2.6 million from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London was stolen.

Robber Ronnie Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison after being jailed for 30 years for his role and spent 35 years on the run.

He was brought back to the UK from Brazil by The Sun in 2001 and served another ten years behind bars before his death in a care home in 2013.

In 2006 the Securitas Deport robbery started with a kidnapping and ended with a gang walking away with £53million – the second largest heist in the entire world.

And the most recent heist on the list is the 2020 Tamara Ecclestone jewellery theft, where a gang plundered £26 million of jewellery and cash from the British socialite’s home.

But Covid fraud dwarfs all of those robberies.

Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “The Chancellor hasn’t just been allowing criminals to get away with daylight robbery – he’s been leaving the vault wide open.

“This isn’t just a criminal waste of taxpayer money – but comes as families across the country are emptying their pockets for Tory taxes in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

“It should be a source of enduring shame to the Chancellor that he has so casually written off ten times as much as was lost in the biggest criminal heists in our history.”

Meanwhile, the government admitted it lost £8.6bn to fraud and overpayments in the year ending in April.

Fraud alone accounted for a massive £6.5bn.

Works and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey vowed to boost her anti fraud squad to crack down on the illegal behaviour.

Rex

Reuters

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Covid fraud was a ‘criminal waste of taxpayers’ money’[/caption]