Norwegian sentenced to prison for fraud

A Norwegian man in his 30s has been sentenced to imprisonment in Norway after living in Thailand due to serious fraud.

In 2012, the man from Sortland, Norway, was on sick leave from his job and granted unemployment benefits for a period of max two years. To receive these benefits, the man had to submit notification cards to the Norwegian government, and a control of the IP-address he used for this showed irregularities. Supposedly, the Norwegian had, apart from two times, submitted all his notification cards from another country than Norway.

The Norwegian himself does not argue with these allegations, and in court he confessed to the fact that the 570,920 NOK he had received in this period were unauthorized. He admitted to having stayed in Thailand during the period and claimed that the money had been used to provide for his family in the country.

The man was sentenced to six months of imprisonment and ordered to pay 3,000 NOK in legal fees. In addition, Nav, Norway’s Employment Service, social insurance and social office, issued him to pay back the unauthorized unemployment benefits he had received in the period.

Source: Bladet Vesterålen