Somali Scam Artists in Norway

Below is a clip from a Norwegian TV news story about Somali immigrants who scam the welfare system.

Anyone who lives in a Western city that has been culturally enriched by Somalis — Minneapolis, say — will be aware that this same behavior pattern is exhibited by Somali immigrants wherever they land. They gain permanent resident status, set up their enclaves, bring in their relatives — real or fake — under family reunion policies, and then they scam the state welfare system. This particular scam involves couples who pretend to be divorced so that the wife may claim a generous welfare allowance for each child, now that she is a “single mother”.

As El Inglés pointed out in his recent essay, this sort of behavior contributes to the destruction of the host nation’s social capital. One of the officials interviewed for the piece acknowledges that Norway’s generous welfare system depends on trust — the state assumes that recipients are acting in good faith, which is what “persons of Norwegian background” have always done up until now. How can the system function once trust has evaporated?

Many thanks to Norwegian-Anon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling. The video plus a complete transcript are below the jump:


Transcript:

0:01		The time is 8:30 AM.
0:03		Undercover police, together with child protection services,
0:05		go into action somewhere in Oslo East End
0:09		On paper, at this adress, there is only supposed to live a single mother with two kids.
0:14		“We shall arrest the suspects in the welfare abuse case.”
0:18		The police suspect that more people live in the apartment,
0:21		that also the father lives here,
0:23		and that the family has cheated the state for 800,000 NOK (140,000 USD) over five years.
0:28		Voices can be heard from the inside.
0:31		“Open the door!”
0:38		Then, after half an hour, we are finally let inside, and everyone is present
0:43		Mother, father and two little children, five and six years old.
0:46		The married couple that have reported to the authorities that they are divorced,
0:49		are arrested, and now risk six years in prison.
0:53		Police yesterday and today went into action on four Somali families.
0:58		Many are arrested.
1:00		“Of course it is serious when the amounts are so great,
1:05		that one conciously, over time, has cheated public services with false information.”
1:10		We are blessed in Norway; over 100 years since the first welfare laws securing single parents...
1:22		Since then, the list of welfare support for single parents have become as long as this.
1:28		On average, single parents get 15,000 NOK (2,600 USD) for each child every month.
1:35		The system is based on trust.
1:38		“A mother lies about supporting children alone, we believe,
1:43		and the father also claims to live another place.”
1:45		It is NAV (the public welfare agency) that has reported the families.
1:48		Before, NAV has denied that they create abuse statistics based on ethnicity.
1:53		For the first time, we are told the truth about a pattern,
1:56		that many have reported, but have been unable to document.
2:00		“When we make these ‘risk analyses’, we have statistics
2:06		on persons who give birth to children with the same father, before and after divorce,
2:12		and then we find that we have about 100 persons in the Somali community.”
2:18		Is that much?
2:20		“It is, strikingly many.”
2:25		Without being able to say that all these 100 are welfare abusers.
2:29		But NAV find it odd that one has children fathered by an ex-husband.
2:34		In addition to the figures from NAV, NRK have received figures from Statistics Norway.
2:38		It is revealed that half of all Somali children born in this country,
2:42		are born outside of marriage.
2:44		Either there is great acceptance of single mothers in the Somali community,
2:47		or else the statistics tell us something about the scope of the welfare abuse.
2:52		“We conclude that there are more cases with people of Somali origins,
2:58		than with ethnic Norwegians.”
3:00		On average, Somali women give birth to 3.8 children in Norway.
3:04		Nobody else receives as much welfare support as they do.