Abuse of health welfare benefits

In 1997, the Italian government paid disability pensions to 30,000 dead people. The fraud was discovered when the dead failed to return their census forms. Other Italians apparently worked to receive disability payments with the help of bogus medical certificates. A check of 15,000 recipients turned up 5000 fraudulent handicaps. A further 131,000 Italians who were drawing disability pensions had to undergo medical examinations to verify their claims. Probably, more than 20% of the payments were discontinued.