I'm not sure why anybody would pay as much as the article suggests though (£25k from memory). Against the cost of the 5 year route, its grossly disproportionate. It seems to me like the only people who are getting defrauded are those attempting to do this in the first place.
They don't have to give up their council house, Don't have to take their children out of school. Both parents keep their UK jobs. They keep all their UK benefits. Don't have to wait 3 months before they can claim benefits again. Don't have to buy health insurance for all their family they take from the UK and all their relatives from their home country that they take to Ireland (the Irish healthcare system is expensive). Don't have to work in Ireland etc
Don't forget that EJC rulings allows lots of people to enter the UK, not just a spouse. Elderly parent and grandparents could then be given to the UK taxpayers to look after under EU rulings. All their non- EU siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews and all their families could use the schools, work, have council housing, free NHS and UK benefits. etc
The Eind EJC ruling said that their Brit can be treated as a "worker qualified person" even if they don't work, which meant all their non-EU relatives could have everything from the UK as they get what a worker can have too, even if they don't work and their Brit sponsors can carry on not working.
There are lots of very strange rulings from the ECJ, that EEA countries did not sign up to and EEA counties are fed up with these rulings. i.e. The UK wants people from countries where TB is present, to be Xrayed to avoid the spead in the UK. If they enter via EU rules, the EU says they can move to the UK without an Xray showing they are clear of TB.