The bus station in Shumen, Bulgaria. Several fraudsters operating in the Netherlands come from the area around Bulgaria's north-west city

Immigrants tangled up with Turkish gangs

Are Bulgarian immigrants abusing the welfare system? Several cases of benefit fraud have sparked controversy. But often, the suspected fraudsters are themselves simply victims of organised crime networks.

Published on 17 May 2013 at 12:33
The bus station in Shumen, Bulgaria. Several fraudsters operating in the Netherlands come from the area around Bulgaria's north-west city

Mitko Dimitrov Iliev applied for his first passport at the age of 50. He is a small man with crooked teeth and a shy expression. His home in Ivanski, a village in north-east Bulgaria, is dilapidated but spacious. His otherwise empty bookcase contains little more than an accordion. He used it last year in an attempt to earn a little money busking in the Dutch city of Groningen.

While he was playing in the street, a group of Turks approached him. They offered to assist him in registering with the municipal authorities. “One of the Turks interpreted, so I had no idea what they were saying.” The Turk in question later promised him a brand new mobile phone and said “Come on, we’re going to start a business.” He had Mitko, who is illiterate, sign a stack of documents. Mitko holds his thumb and index finger 15cm apart. That is how thick the stack was.

Turks in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Bulgaria play a major role in organising fraudulent benefit claims in the Netherlands. Not to mention the exploitation of illiterate Bulgarians. Bulgaria has quite a large Turkish-speaking minority. It comprises ethnic Turks and Roma, who began calling themselves Turkish after 1989. Their shared language and religion enable them to easily befriend the large Turkish communities in western Europe. Mitko received €200, but never saw any sign of the promised phone.

A few weeks later, however, his old phone began to ring incessantly. It was invariably a Dutchman on the line, who he could not understand. After a while, he realised that it had to be a man from the bank. Mitko thinks that it is the Dutch bank with an orange lion in its logo, because he once saw the symbol on a bank card.

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The bank continued to call. Mitko has since begun to assume that he has a business and considerable debts in the Netherlands. After all, this has also happened to several people who he knows. He has no idea whatsoever of the sums involved, as the only piece of paper he possesses himself is his proof of registration with the municipal authorities. Just few days ago, Mitko therefore finally decided to turn the phone off and board a minibus back to Bulgaria. “I’m scared they will eventually impound my home or put me behind bars for someone else’s crime.”

Minibuses depart from Bulgaria

Ivanski is just one of a whole series of Bulgarian villages from which minibuses continually depart for the Netherlands. An evening of enquiries in the provincial capital, Shumen, yields a list of seven places within a radius of 30km. In most of these villages, there are one or two men who take care of contacts and organise transport.

“The invasion of the West’s social schemes by Bulgarian minorities, Roma and Turks has unfortunately already been institutionalised and professionalised,” says Krastyo Petkov, professor of sociology at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia. Prof. Petkov specialises in economic migration to the EU, and has carried out fieldwork in Belgium.

Informal networks of family ties in the broadest possible sense of the term, he explains, have become more stable and increasingly subtle throughout the years. A Bulgarian prosecutor in charge of the Dutch case, puts it this way: “I am amazed that we have not yet received any complaints from Germany. Finland deported three planeloads of people about a year ago. They were issued gifts and a stern warning not to return.” He smiles. “People travel to Europe’s wealthiest nations in this manner. They go to Spain and Greece if they really intend to work hard.”

Social tourism

The networks comprise three levels. The “lieutenants” who are responsible for recruiting people in Bulgaria, are generally slightly better educated and speak more languages that the average citizen. They maintain contact with the person who organises accommodation and registration in the country of destination. And then there are the “big bosses”, ‘people who offer protection. They know how to resolve problems with the police and the law, and have the right contacts to achieve this.

Prof. Petkov bases his conclusions partly on interviews held with Roma people in Brussels. “Belgium is facing the same problem of ‘social tourism’ as the Netherlands,” he insists. One of the reasons that a large portion of Roma in Bulgaria has opted to become Muslim and speak Turkish during the past two decades, is that it renders the Turkish communities more accessible to them. “These communities help them to take up residence, but not to integrate.”

In practice, the first and second generation Turks become the bosses and employers of the Bulgarian newcomers. The same networks which organise “social tourism” are often also involved in prostitution and organising human trafficking for poorly paid illegal jobs through subcontractors in the agricultural sector. “They exploit them.”

Promising bread, but giving crumbs

Gancho and Veneta Todorov from Salmanovo, a village with a population of 900 – and six orchestras – just returned from Zwolle a few weeks ago. Veneta sells street newspapers in front of the Jumbo supermarket there, and Gancho at Aldi. They have tulips in the front garden of their detached house, and serve peanuts from a Dutch branch of Aldi at a table in the shade of the grape vines.

Whenever they are working in the Netherlands, their three children stay here with their grandparents. They rent a room from an African woman in Zwolle for €5 a night. “The cramped space drives me crazy,” Gancho sighs. He is evidently glad to be back in his own garden, which also includes a large chicken coop. The fact that Bulgarians require a permit to work in the Netherlands and Belgium makes them particularly vulnerable. “The Turks promise you bread, but give you just crumbs. They are liars, but if you complain then they threaten to report you to the police.”

The Todorovs are looking forward to next year, when Bulgarians will no longer require work permits. “I will then finally be able to accept the jobs I have been offered,” says Gancho, “such as in the post service, the agricultural sector or at a poultry slaughterhouse. Right now, we are little more than beggars.”

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