RAIDS on Lancaster people leading a double life - illegally claiming social security benefit while they're in full time jobs - netted a staggering £6,000. Operation Spotlight a campaign by social security investigators to weed out cheats in the region has so far saved the taxpayer nearly £100,000. Citizen reporter Julie Seddon joined the fraud squad last Friday as they pounced on unsuspecting offenders in 15-minute spot checks.

The setting for this week's investigation was Ladies Walk industrial estate, off Caton Road in Lancaster.

Fraud teams from Liverpool had been specially drafted in for the swoop so I joined detectives Pam Thompson and Craig Farley for the briefing and we set off on our mission.

The convoy of investigators left no stone unturned as they scouted among the various industrial units demanding a full lists of names and national insurance numbers.

Pam and Craig met with some general abuse from workers but on the whole the response from managers was helpful.

Once armed with this valuable information, the real work to match up anyone working and claiming unemployment benefit began.

A spokesman for Operation Spotlight said: "The results of the campaign to date have been very pleasing."

"Members of the public have been calling a special hotline number with good information about suspected fraud benefit claim and as a result we expect savings to the taxpayer to be very significant."

"The word seems to be out - benefit fraudsters should expect to be caught by investigators."

The latest fraud detection mission took place on Wednesday when the police were called in to help with stop checks on motorists along St Georges Quay in Lancaster.

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