OVERIJSSEL - The court of Overijssel yesterday convicted a 30-year-old man for fraud with student grants, in which the University of the Dutch Caribbean and the University of Curaçao were used to wrongly obtain student grants. He managed to get 350,000 euros. 

The man was given a three-month suspended prison sentence with two years' probation for complicity in fraud, forgery and money laundering. In addition to the prison sentence, the court imposed a community service order of 240 hours on the man.  

Together with others the man scammed the Student Finance Service (DUO) by applying for student finance in the name of other people. The applicants had a weak social position and no previous education required to follow a university education, but in order to deliberately mislead the DUO, these persons were presented by the man and his co-perpetrators in the applications as students who were entitled to grants.  

The applications and the information stated therein are usually checked retrospectively by DUO at the educational institutions involved, including those from Curaçao named in this case. Checks and statements from various applicants have shown that the registrations of 48 applicants for student grants were unknown and/or that the applicants were not attending college.