The former police officer, divorced and with no children of his own,
quit his 1,000-euro-a-month ($1,300) job in 2001 and has been living
solely on benefits ever since, police said on Thursday.
Using photographs of children he found online, the 54-year-old man
forged birth certificates and other documents needed to claim benefits
for at least one child a year since 1996.
Police estimate he made at least 150,000 euros in claims over 15 years, but the actual amount is probably much higher.
The fraud was so expert, police said, that they only realized
something was amiss when they noticed his was the only Greek family with
that many children. The average Greek family usually has two or three
children.
"We have never seen (a scam) like this before," said a police
official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak
to the press.
The former policeman, who under Greek law cannot be named, was
arrested Wednesday as he was about to collect 8,000 euros in benefits
from an Athens branch of Greece's employment agency OAED. He was taken
to the prosecutor's office Thursday.
Widespread fraud, a generous welfare state and a notoriously
inefficient public sector have been blamed as root causes of Greece's
financial trouble that threatens to break apart the euro zone.
A team of tax investigators recently discovered that a seemingly
humble Greek farmer on the island of Thasos, who owned a red Ferrari and
a Porsche, was in fact into loan sharking.
