Seventeen New York residents have been charged in Federal Court of fraudulently collecting more than $42 million between 2000 and 2009 from two German-government funds designated for Holocaust survivors provided.
The defendants include six Claims Conference employees. Federal prosecutors said some of the defendants posed as survivors and filed thousands of fake applications, while those who worked for the Claims Committee approved the requests and split the take.
"If ever there was a cause that you would hope and expect would be immune from base greed and criminal fraud, it would be the Claims Conference, which every day assists thousands of poor and elderly victims of Nazi persecution," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. "Sadly, those victim funds were themselves victimized."
One year ago the FBI opened the investigation following suspicions by several Claims Conference workers. In July the Claims Conference contacted people suspected of receiving compensation fraudulently and notified them that the payments would halt and that they must return the money within 90 days. In the meantime the investigation found that other people had filed false requests for reparations from a fund set up by the German government for forced labor victims.
Some of the false claims were filed by people born after the war, and one was not even Jewish.
