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A Dutch asylum seeker used government-funded taxis to travel to a hospital where he had no scheduled appointments, costing taxpayers 2,500 euros.
NL#TIMES reports that repeated taxi rides raised concerns at an asylum centre in Limburg. Staff noticed that a resident frequently ordered taxis to a nearby hospital, despite not always having medical appointments. The man had a legitimate medical indication allowing him free transport, but records show he made at least 24 trips in four months without a scheduled visit.
“The employees booking these rides trust the good faith of the residents,” a COA staff member wrote in an internal email in 2023. “This resident abused that trust. He committed fraud.”
Financial stakes in asylum care are high, but transparency is minimal. In response to a freedom of information request, COA initially refused to release documents detailing transport abuses. When the documents were released, they were heavily redacted. Only after legal action did an unedited version become available.The released emails reveal a system vulnerable to exploitation. A 2025 GZA internal memo acknowledges that their staff could not verify whether an asylum seeker actually had a medical appointment. “There is no step in the procedure that checks for a confirmed hospital appointment,” a GZA employee wrote. “Employers can request confirmation but this is based on intuition rather than a standard protocol.”
The reasons for the unnecessary trips remain unclear.
