FRAUDBUSTERS are closing in on dozens of dole fiddlers across East Lancashire who have been shopped by neighbours on a special anonymous hotline.

Social security swindlers are being rooted out in a bid to save millions of pounds in benefit fraud.

And since the pilot scheme in Blackburn and Burnley to encourage people to turn in suspected fraudsters was set up, investigators have opened files on scores of new cases.

A special telephone fraud hotline was set up by the Benefits Agency on October 23 for the public in the Blackburn and Burnley areas to pass on information about suspected fraud.

More than 150 calls have already been made to trained investigators manning the phones during the three-month pilot scheme.

The experts are working on more than 100 of the calls, while 20 more are under heavy investigation.

Three cases were already being probed and only 16 allegations proved unfounded.

A Benefits Agency spokesman said: "The results of the fraud hotline will be clearer in about three weeks.

"A lot of background work has to go into most of the allegations we receive."

He said the calls were split fairly evenly between the Blackburn and Burnley areas.

He said 84 per cent of callers had decided to phone after seeing the hotline number in the local press.

Government experts are confident that the nationwide strategy will save the taxpayer more than £1 billion a year.

FRAUD HOTLINE NUMBER 0800 834065

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