A man has become the first person to be sentenced to jail in connection with a disability benefits scam that involved hundreds of people.
Brian Aber, 46, defrauded the Department of Social Security out of some €18,000 for roughly four-and-a-half years stretching from 2019 to 2023.
He admitted to the fraud and also pleaded guilty to recidivism, using falsified documents and breaching probation.
On Wednesday, Magistrate Rachel Montebello sentenced him to two years in prison, noting that the fraud was committed “repeatedly and systematically” between January 2019 and July 2023.
The court did not punish him for the offences for which he was placed under probation last March.
The magistrate acknowledged that Aber had issues related to a previous breakup and needed help to address those issues, but ruled that he could not be let off with a community service sentence, given that he had continued to commit the fraud while under probation.
Aber’s lawyer Jose Herrera informed the court that he intends to appeal the prison sentence.
Aber has agreed to refund the amount defrauded and has signed an agreement with the Department of Social Security to that effect. He has already refunded some €2,000 and the pending balance is €16,358.74, the court heard.
The disability fraud racket saw hundreds of people receive monthly benefit payments after they used falsified documents to be certified as severely disabled.
Applicants were guided by fixers who obtained the false documents for them and guided them through the application process. In many cases, applicants claimed to be severely epileptic.
Former Labour MP Silvio Grixti, a family doctor, is suspected of being at the heart of the scam. He resigned in late 2020 when police began investigating the claims. The scam, however, remained hidden from public view until Times of Malta exposed it last year.
Police have since accelerated prosecutions of suspected benefit fraudsters, who until Aber had all been ordered to pay back money defrauded and handed suspended sentences or community service orders.
Grixti has not been charged with any crime.
Replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Albert Buttigieg, Social Welfare Minister Michael Falzon said on Wednesday that the fraud is estimated to amount to €2.4 million in total. Around €1 million has been reimbursed so far.
The minister said an internal board was continuing to investigate the processes for the granting of social benefits but, he stressed the board was not investigating individual cases. The plan was for the report of the board to be eventually tabled in parliament.