They claimed poverty and got child benefits while sending one daughter to a private school and obtained rent subsidies while living in a penthouse.
They were finally caught when they tried to claim a tax refund due the poor but investigators found the goods bought were Chanel designer products.
Nigerian-born Emmanuel Scotts, 44, was jailed for 4-Ω years while his Iranian-born wife, Behnaz, 42, was given a suspended sentence of 51 weeks.
The Express of London said the couple organized a complex fraud scheme that drew on several different kinds of welfare and brought them $64,000 a year illegally.
They lived in a “glitzy” four-bedroom penthouse in the same building with actor Michael Caine, The Express said. The penthouse was valued at $2.9 million. But the couple wangled a rent subsidy of $4,270 a month.
They have daughters aged 3 and 8 with the school-age child attending a private school charging tuition fees of more than $17,000 a year. But they claimed a child welfare benefit of $2,800 a year.
They even managed to get unemployment compensation, called Jobseeker’s Allowance, of $103 a week.