A Turkish woman claiming “Level 6 care” appeared to be in perfect health during a check at Vienna Airport, leading authorities to believe she was able to “walk normally and without an assistant” in a brazen case of suspected fraud.
According to investigators at Schwechat Airport in Lower Austria, the woman was returning from a holiday home in her native country of Turkey when she “strolled into the control check” during a priority check by the Criminal Investigation Department.
Officers noted that she “showed no walking aids, visible disabilities, or other abnormalities,” which contradicted her official status as someone “seriously ill.”
The subsequent investigation revealed that the woman had been receiving a Level 6 care allowance of €1,685.40 month a month in Austria.
Under Austrian law, this level of “aid money is actually reserved for people or caregivers of people who rely on particularly intensive care around the clock and are often no longer able to walk independently.”
Suspicious of her mobility, the welfare fraud task force (SOLBE) initiated a follow-up medical examination. The results confirmed the officers’ doubts: the recipient was “actually perfectly healthy,” leading to the immediate cancellation of her care allowance.
The financial impact of this case is significant, with investigators estimating that the woman had, over the course of her fraud, collected €150,000 illegally. As Heute news outlet outlines, this incident highlights a broader trend, as “welfare fraud explodes, and most cases are in Vienna.”
Vienna also happens to have the largest foreign population in Austria, and the country, like many other European countries, is facing billions in costs linked to mass immigration, including social benefits, housing, and education.
Notably, nearly all cases of welfare fraud are linked to foreigners, totaling approximately 70 percent.
“More than 70 percent of the suspects are not Austrian citizens,” Gerald Tatzgern, head of the department for combating welfare fraud, said last year. One common form of fraud is couples registering at different apartments to receive higher benefits, while still living in the same house or apartment.
Just last month, Remix News reported on another Turkish asylum family that was ordered to repay €66,000 in welfare benefits after an investigation found the father owned a large vineyard, an Istanbul apartment, and €150,000 in Bitcoin.
Foreigners are vastly overrepresented in welfare statistics overall in Austria. In the small city of St. Pölten, for example, 72 percent of welfare recipients are foreigners.
At the same time, these same foreign groups are committing an extremely disproportionate amount of crime in the country, committing nearly half of all crimes.
🇦🇹‼️ 534,193 criminal cases were reported in Austria last year.
Nearly half of all suspects were non-Austrians.
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(N.B. "Austrian citizens" also includes naturalized foreign-born suspects.) pic.twitter.com/ojMHVUIFlH
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) April 15, 2025Brigadier Gerald Tatzgern, head of the welfare fraud task force, recently published its findings, noting that the unit has uncovered damage of around €158 million since its inception.
Tatzgern and his team attribute the spike in reported crimes to “recently intensified controls.” While the authorities recorded only “472 reports” in 2016, that number “rose significantly to 6,062 by 2025.”
