Officials said this week that a group of day care center operators bribed workers at three New York City agencies and exploited the complex social service bureaucracy to plunder millions of dollars from a program which takes on expenses for child-care for poor parents in order to help them in finding work.

The federal prosecutors termed it as ‘massive fraud and bribery scheme’ which involved a group of Russian immigrants that controlled more than 30 day care centers in Brooklyn and Staten Island. They coined a term for themselves- ‘the Congregation’.

A total of 11 people were accused of conspiring to pay or receive bribes and all of them were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. & out of them were city workers.

The US attorney, Preet Bharara said at a news conference that the bribes were paid to city workers to “essentially look the other way and grease the gravy train.”

The complaints against these workers suggest that the seven city workers had taken payments and some of them even cooperated with investigators secretly recording meetings where bribes were made.