€15k claimed with false PPS number

A Laois resident who used a false PPS number to claim over €15,000 in unemployment benefits has received a two-year suspended sentence.

Axenia Alexei, aged 30, came to Ireland from Moldova in 2009 and used a false Latvian passport bought online to obtain a PPS number so she could work.

Garda David Smith accepted that Alexei had been working and paying taxes in Ireland until 2011. She began to use the false PPS number to claim jobseeker’s allowance when she lost her job.

Alexei, a mother of one, of Rossvale, Portlaoise, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to stealing a total of €15,339 from the Department of Social Protection at Swords Post Office, Swords, between July 2012 and March 2014.

She also pleaded guilty to possessing a fake Latvian passport at her home on September 15, 2014. She has no previous convictions.

Garda Smith agreed with Tom Neville, defending, that Alexei had been entitled to work legally in Ireland since 2012 and could have claimed jobseeker’s allowance using her real PPS number.

Judge Martin Nolan calculated that Alexei could have claimed over €7,000 had she used her real PPS number.

Garda Smith told Cormac Quinn, prosecuting, that Alexei’s offending was discovered after she had been arrested for shoplifting.

Alexei, who has a master’s degree in civil law from Romania, apologised and told gardaí she had been struggling to pay for basic needs since she had lost her job in a shop.

Garda Smith told Mr Quinn that Alexei had worked for a time in 2012 using her real PPS number and had simultaneously claimed benefits with the false PPS number.

Mr Neville submitted to Judge Nolan that his client hoped to open a business with her partner and had saved €2,000 so far as compensation.

Judge Nolan suspended the sentence for two years and ordered that the €2,000 be handed over to the Department of Social Protection.

He gave Alexei a further two years to pay back €6,000.