Family members sentenced over crash claims

24/08/2018

Family members sentenced over crash claims

On Friday 17 August, four men were sentenced at Inner London Crown Court, for their part in carrying out a series of 'crash for cash' frauds, and then claiming against fraudulent insurance policies.

Following an investigation by the City of London Police's Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED), Salah Mohammed and his three nephews pleaded guilty and were sentenced as follows:

Rashid Ahmed, 27, from Ilkeston Court, Hackney, London, E5, 18 months in prison.

Abdullahi Bana, 23, from Southwold Road, London, E5, 24 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Salah Mohammed, 35, of no fixed abode, six months in prison to run consecutively to the nine year sentence he is already serving for an unrelated crime.

Abbas Moobe, 21, from Buttsbury Road, Ilford, 30 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months and 170 hours of unpaid work.

The case was first brought to IFED's attention by the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), after they worked with insurer members to identify a series of suspected fraudulent claims involving staged and contrived vehicle collisions.

They were able to link several vehicle damage claims to the four family members through various commonalities, such as the bank card that was used to buy each insurance policy that was being claimed against.

It was discovered that the same bank card had been used to incept five separate policies with Service Insurance and Aviva, all with a different fake name and address. IFED officers established that the bank card belonged to Moobe and upon further investigation, uncovered two further policies that Moobe had incepted with other insurers.

After each fraudulent policy was incepted by Moobe, the family worked together to set up a fake collision involving the insured vehicle, with Bana, Mohammed and Ahmed posing as the third party in a separate vehicle. They would then make a mix of personal injury claims and vehicle repair claims against the policy that Moobe had incepted.

In total, they made five claims against the fraudulent policies, worth £41,210.60 . In some of the claims, they were also provided with hire cars.

City of London Police's Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, who led the investigation for IFED, said, 'These fraudsters tried to claim for thousands of pounds for a series of fake car crashes, but thanks to our investigation with support from the IFB, Service Insurance and Aviva, all they've ended up with is a criminal sentence.

'This investigation is a prime example of how the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department's joint work with the insurance industry can prove invaluable, when catching out insurance fraudsters.'

Jason Potter, head of investigations at the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), commented, 'It's clear from the fact that members of this gang are already serving prison sentences that these fraudsters are dangerous criminals with little regard for the rules. This case demonstrates that insurance fraud is often linked to wider criminality and it's only by working closely with the insurance industry and police that we were able to stop these fraudsters in their tracks.

'Organised insurance fraud is a serious crime and it is imperative that we continue to focus our efforts on detecting and deterring this type of behaviour in order to stamp it out at the root.'