A convicted Bulgarian benefits fraudster who wants to be deported cannot be sent home as prosecutors are still trying to recover the money he stole. Stoyan Stoyanov, 28, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2024 for his role in a gang that carried out the largest benefit fraud operation ever uncovered in the UK. The Bulgarian nationals “systematically plundered” the country’s welfare system and admitted to stealing upwards of £50 million of taxpayers’ money over a four-and-half-year period. Galina Nikolova, 39, Tsvetka Todorova, 53, Gyunesh Ali, 34, Patritsia Paneva, 27 and Stoyanov were jailed for a combined 25 years in May last year at Wood Green Crown Court. At a confiscation hearing last week, Stoyanov, who has been released on licence, demanded to be sent back to his own country as he had a “right to a normal life”. The court heard that a deportation order was made against him and that he has been released from detention on immigration bail until the conclusion of confiscation proceedings against the gang. Because of a number of delays, the proceedings could continue into the summer. Patritsia Paneva, Gyunesh Ali, and Tsvetka Todorova, all pleaded guilty to fraud