The gang was based in north London in the back rooms of three convenience stores, or ‘benefit factories’ as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) put it, where they submitted over 6,000 claims between October 2016 and May 2021 and were paid £53,901,959.82 in Universal Credit benefits.

Gyunesh Ali, 33, Patritsia Paneva, 26, Stoyan Stoyanov, 27, Tsvetva Todorova, 52, and Galina Nikolov, 38, all pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering offences and are due to be sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on 28 May.