The government is to recruit a 400-strong team of fraud investigators for a 'major blitz' on the hidden economy, targetting tax and VAT fraud alongside crooked bosses who help their employees defraud the benefit system. The team will be made up of Social Security, Inland Revenue and Customs fraud experts. As part of the new initiative, from May, the DSS will co-operate with the Inland Revenue in launching a confidential phone line to advise those in the hidden economy how to 'go straight', and a major publicity campaign will stress the unfairness of benefit fraud. Social security secretary Alistair Darling made the announcement in response to Lord Grabiner's recent report on the hidden economy.