Episode 4 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud in the UK is reaching epidemic levels,

and it's costing us billions of pounds a year.

Deliberate crashes,

bogus personal injury claims,

even fake deaths.

The fraudsters are risking more and more to make a quick killing

and every year, it's adding up to £50 to your insurance bill.

Insurers are fighting back.

Armed with covert surveillance systems...

How they think they can get away with it, I don't know,

when the evidence from the camera is so clear.

..sophisticated data analysis techniques...

This is connected to a bank account and a second mobile phone number.

..and a newly formed, dedicated police unit...

Police! Step back!

..they're catching the criminals red handed.

All those conmen, scammers, cheats on the fiddle,

now they're caught in the act

and claimed and shamed.

Today, a fire investigation team

searches for clues amongst the ashes.

Mr Ross's factory was totally destroyed.

The Met Police execute a raid on a small business...

..and insurance fraud enters the art world.

25% of my pieces will have some insurance fraud element to it.

It's just after 9pm on 19th August 2009.

A massive fire has engulfed a carpet warehouse

at the Knowsley Industrial Park, Liverpool.

"Fire service."

"Oh, hi, listen, I'm just working late and my warehouse is on fire

"and all outside is on fire."

On the night the call came in,

it was about five past nine in the evening

a fire was reported by a treble nine call.

It...it's literally...

-HE SIGHS

-..sorry.

Are you OK?

Initially, the Merseyside Fire Department

dispatched two fire engines to deal with the blaze.

On arrival, Fire Officer Myles Platt knew they would need more help.

I got called to the incident as it was developing.

I quickly assessed the scene.

I realised that this was a significant blaze.

It was a warm summer's evening, there was a strong wind blowing

and this intense fire was spread over a large geographical area.

I very quickly realised that we'd need to get

a lot of assets down there on the ground

to actually deal with this incident and ultimately extinguish it.

The Merseyside Fire Department arrives to find warehouse owner,

Elliot Ross, watching his business go up in flames.

'There was a wide impact.'

So the significant blaze, there was real fear of that spreading

to the adjacent properties

and the amount of water and resources that we got

over a fairly long period of time actually to contain that blaze.

The fire was so intense, six other businesses on the estate

had their buildings damaged by the blaze.

It took 12 fire engines to tame the flames.

You've actually got palettes and machinery that's on fire.

You've got vehicles in another geographical location

which are on fire.

We had to shut down roads to access water supplies,

to make the public safe.

The destruction to the carpet warehouse was so extensive

business owner, Elliot Ross,

would need to file an insurance claim of £200,000

to cover the damage.

The Merseyside Fire Department knew that the fire

had started in three places.

This is very unlikely to occur without human intervention.

Someone had deliberately tried to destroy Mr Elliot's warehouse.

'It's a massive operation.'

This was a large protracted incident

as a result of somebody setting a fire deliberately.

It had become an arson investigation.

The case was handed to a brand-new team, named Flare.

Set up in June 2009, Flare is a joint police and fire brigade unit

tasked with investigating cases of commercial arson.

The team investigating this arson was headed up

by Fire Marshall Mark Schuler and DC Karen Nixon.

Mark and I attended the fire the following morning.

There were still a lot of fire appliances tending the fire.

There was huge, huge damage.

A number of businesses were affected, one was partly destroyed.

Mr Ross's factory was totally destroyed.

So it was a scene of devastation.

The Flare unit discovered the fire had been started

by three disposable barbecues.

These barbecues became the starting point for their investigation.

'There were two of those placed in the pallet yard,

'which was the adjoining business'

and there was one left on the windowsill of Mr Ross's warehouse.

Two of the barbecues had been destroyed by the fire,

but the one left on the window sill was only half burnt.

This barbecue became crucial to the investigation.

That barbecue had been stacked with a number of items

which were extremely significant

and of great value to our investigation

and they included a whole toilet roll,

a couple of newspapers and a piece of cardboard,

which subsequently was found to be the wrapping of a pair of gloves.

We were able to take those very small fragments

and be able to back-track them and source where they'd come from.

The half-burnt toilet roll from the barbecue

was sent to a forensic team.

Its composition was compared against 44 other types of toilet roll.

The results were very interesting. The burnt toilet paper

exactly matched rolls stored at the warehouse.

The toilet roll that was recovered from the barbecue at the seat

of the fire was identical to the toilet rolls that Mr Elliot Ross had

in his premises and nobody else had those, so it was a very strong link.

This revealed that the fire was started by someone

who had access to the warehouse.

Warehouse owner Elliot Ross was now on the shortlist of suspects.

To narrow the list,

Flare turned its attention to another item

in the half-burnt barbecue.

Amongst the disposable barbecue at that location

there was a small fragment of cardboard.

We found out that was actually part of a packaging

for a protective glove.

The card had come from a box of latex gloves.

Crucially, the piece of card had a web address on it,

that of the manufacturer.

The Flare unit contacted the glove makers.

They were able to tell us that the glove packaging was theirs

and they made them for a well-known large supermarket chain.

Significantly for us,

that particular packaging had only been available

from May of that year,

so there was only 43 sales of those gloves in the Merseyside area.

It actually gave us one purchase of gloves

that was the night before the arson attack

and it was actually at a large supermarket

which was near to where Mr Ross lived.

From just fragments of evidence,

the Flare unit had found a prime suspect...

warehouse owner, Elliot Ross.

But they would need much more conclusive evidence

to prove their suspicions.

Technology was to provide the next breakthrough.

The Flare unit was granted access to information

about Mr Ross's mobile phone.

Specifically they had a map

where the phone was each time it had been used.

We were able to put Mr Ross within 900 metres of that supermarket

on that evening

and then subsequently to that, we got further information,

which enabled us to actually put him outside

and then inside that supermarket at the time of the purchase.

The Flare Unit knew it was close and needed one last piece of evidence.

So, they went back to the supermarket

to ask for a detailed list of purchases

from the night before the fire.

From that, The Flare Unit discovered

that Mr Ross had made purchases in the store.

Very incriminating purchases.

A bottle of flammable liquid.

Some extra-long matches.

And most importantly,

the box of latex gloves whose packaging was found

stuffed in the half-burnt barbecue.

The Flare Unit had got its man.

At Liverpool Crown Court, Elliot Ross pleaded not guilty,

but after a four-week trial, the jury reached their verdict.

He was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison.

Maybe it wasn't his intention to cause so much damage,

but he didn't know the risk he was going to place to fire-fighters

that had to tackle those two seats of fire simultaneously.

He didn't think about that, did he?

I do think Elliot Ross understood the seriousness of his actions.

I believe that he planned the fire carefully

and that he set it with a view

to causing considerable damage in his property

so he could make a fraudulent claim and defraud the insurance company

and I do believe he knew what he was doing when he did it.

The Met Police move in on a suspected fraud gang.

And a bus company faces a whiplash claim.

It looks as though the UK public

have got the weakest necks in Europe.

If you are involved in a road traffic accident,

you might be approached by an accident management company.

An honest accident management company

will help to process your insurance forms,

provide a hire car whilst yours is being fixed

and help with any claims for personal injury

you may have suffered.

However, the last ten years has seen a dramatic rise in fraudulent accident management companies.

Not just helping, but encouraging people to make fraudulent claims.

The rise of these rogue businesses isn't being left unchecked.

This is the home of the Met Traffic Unit.

Set up in 2009, this specialist department

is committed to reducing the number of traffic related deaths,

injuries and crimes on London's roads.

My team will use every method available in order to catch them -

overt tactics, covert tactics, the helicopter.

Any tactic that we can think of, we will use to catch these people.

One of their missions is to eradicate fraudulent accident management companies.

Today the traffic unit is executing a multiple location raid

on an accident management company that's believed to be involved in fraudulent activity.

We're hoping to execute a search warrant and arrest a director

of an accident management company that we believe, or certainly suspect,

has been involved in arranging induced collisions.

Of course, part of today will be to obtain the evidence to support our suspicions.

We've certainly been investigating them

for some eight to nine months now.

So we're quite happy that they're involved in criminality.

The small business being raided is suspected to be orchestrating induced collisions,

also known as "crash for cash".

"Crash for cash" is a term given to collisions executed in order to make money from motor insurance policies.

And it's big business - there are an estimated 30,000

crash for cash incidents per year on Britain's roads,

valued at least £350 million,

adding an average of £44 to your motor insurance bill every year.

Also from the Met Traffic Unit is DC Eastick.

I'll have, um, one uniform with me going in. Yeah.

I don't think the bell works.

KNOCKS ON DOOR

It's the police. Can you open up, please?

There's no sign of the suspect.

If he's in, he's not opening the door.

I don't think there's anyone in.

We've got a warrant so we can have a look inside.

We'll go and get the enforcer round to try and do the door

because we've got two locks on.

That lock's on and that lock's on so I think it's going to be a bit of a struggle to open it now.

A local unit is called to batter the door down.

If you want a hand, this chap here will do the biz for us.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Great. Well done, mate.

-There you go, sir, it's all done.

-It's all clear. There's nobody in.

-Oh, right.

We've come to the address. The man we're looking for is not present

but we've forced entry because we've got a search warrant,

and we're just in the process of searching the premises

for any evidence related to what we're investigating.

The Traffic Unit starts the search for evidence of fraud.

We're really looking for documentary evidence.

We're looking for anything in relation to claims.

So, evidence of documents and mobile phones?

Very soon the team accumulates what they came for.

We found quite a lot of documents, a lot of banking documents

and a lot of documents in relation to accidents,

even accidents that the actual person's had,

that actually owns the flat, or lives in the flat.

And, er, there are a lot of SIM Cards in there as well,

so I'm interested to know what that's regarding.

Perhaps he's selling them on, or perhaps that's part of a larger conspiracy.

DI Hindmarsh leaves the raid location.

He heads off to oversee the search of the HQ of the accident claims company.

The Met Traffic Unit continues its search for evidence.

We've got two vehicles that we believe

have been used in this particular crime.

We're going to seize them.

Your car insurance doesn't just cover the cost of vehicle repair,

it will also pay your medical bills if you suffer an injury whilst driving.

The most common injury sustained in a motor vehicle incident is whiplash.

The most common form of whiplash injury

that I see in my surgery results from a rear-shunt car accident,

where the head gets forcibly thrown backwards and then forwards.

That causes the muscles and the ligaments in the neck and shoulder

to stretch more than normal

and that causes pain and inflammation.

Despite improvements in car safety features,

in the UK, whiplash claims are at an all-time high.

Around about 76% of all bodily injury claims

that we receive are for whiplash claims.

Insurers are paying out nearly £2 billion a year to the claimants.

The cost to the NHS of treating whiplash

has been estimated at £8 million a year.

It looks as though the UK public have got the weakest necks in Europe.

It's 7 February, 2008,

and the route 9 bus is navigating the busy roads of Luton.

Part way through its journey, it's obstructed by a badly-parked car.

The driver makes a mistake.

He was confronted by a Golf which was parked at a very strange, awkward angle

so he had to slow right down

and wait for approaching traffic to go by

before he could try and manoeuvre around it.

Unfortunately, as he manoeuvred around it,

he misjudged the situation and he caught the car as he went by.

The owner of the car, Shazma Dad,

takes the details of the Arriva bus and its driver.

Our driver, after the incident,

quite rightly accepted that the accident was his fault

and filled in the report form.

Within seven days of that incident,

a solicitor's letter arrived at Arriva.

That letter was claiming not only for the damage to the vehicle

but it was also claiming for personal injury.

Miss Dad reported that the incident had left her with whiplash

and difficulty in sleeping.

She was now seeking financial compensation from the bus company.

As a matter of course, the claims handler compared Miss Dad's account of events

against the bus driver's report.

The bus driver's report stated that no-one was in the car

at the time of the incident.

Possibly something that could be resolved by one of

the nine cameras on the Arriva bus.

And the rear view camera revealed

that Miss Dad was not in her car at the moment it was struck,

confirming the bus driver's report.

So where was she?

The rear-view camera showed our driver getting out of his bus,

walking back to the car, looking around,

going into the nearby shop, walking back out with Miss Dad.

So Miss Dad was not in her car at the time of the accident.

In fact, she only learnt of the scrape

after she'd been found, by the bus driver, in a nearby shop.

Amazingly, Miss Dad had still had the nerve to claim for whiplash.

On being confronted with the CCTV evidence, Miss Dad withdrew her claim

and paid costs and damages to the bus company.

But that wasn't the end of it for her.

We were not prepared to let it rest there.

We want to send out a clear message to people

that they should not try and defraud Arriva.

So we passed the papers to the Bedfordshire Police

and they decided to prosecute her for fraud.

Shazma Dad pleaded guilty and was given a conditional discharge.

I guess that bus companies are regarded by some people

as an easy target, but what I should make clear to them

is that bus companies are not easy targets

and in fact we are at the forefront of the fight against fraud.

Insurance fraud isn't all about car crashes and phoney neck injuries.

Sometimes it targets the finer things in life.

This is the headquarters of the Art Loss Register -

a specialist team based in central London.

When a piece of artwork is lost or stolen anywhere in the world,

the Art Loss Register team make it their mission

to track it down and get it back.

They are led by New York lawyer, Chris Marinello.

We are everywhere, in every art market throughout the world,

but we're really a small team

of about 15 to 20 people.

Chris and his crack team of investigators

will do whatever it takes to retrieve stolen art.

I coordinate with law enforcement, other lawyers, theft victims,

sometimes setting up sting operations

in conjunction with law enforcement.

Basically I'm the person who recovers the art work.

Sometimes the Art Loss Register helps in the fight against fraud.

It used to be that 98% of my cases were simple stolen art cases

that were in need of our recovery services,

but now maybe 25% will have some insurance fraud element to it.

One piece of art that came to its attention

was this 16th century drawing -

Portrait Of A Man Wearing A Ruff by Ottavio Leoni.

Leoni is not as well known as Picasso or Michelangelo

but his work is very detailed and very popular.

He comes from a school of Italian Renaissance artists

that were doing a lot of drawings in preparation for more major works.

In 1993, the portrait was stolen from an art dealer's home.

After an initial investigation, the Leoni was nowhere to be found.

The art dealer received a £10,000 pay-out from her insurance company

and the details of the stolen art

went on the books of the Art Loss Register.

Art is easy to steal. It's transportable, it's... You can hide it easily.

19 years after its disappearance, the portrait reappeared.

It was now on the books of London auction house, Sotheby's.

Sotheby's were unaware that the portrait was stolen,

but the Art Loss Register were 100% aware.

Back in January 2012, we spotted this piece

when we were doing routine checking for Sotheby's,

and this item matched perfectly with one that had been reported stolen to us in 1993.

We contacted the auction house, told them of the match.

They pulled the item from the sale, allowing us to sort the matter out.

Chris had contact details for the person selling the portrait

but no idea how they'd come by the piece or what kind of person they were.

He had to tread carefully -

the person who had put the item up for sale could easily be involved

in some seriously nasty crimes.

Stolen art trades in the underworld

at a rate of maybe 5% or 10% of the true value of the artwork.

And they also barter amongst themselves for drugs,

and for weapons, and then we've seen some hard evidence

of connection to international terrorism and the antiquities trade.

Despite the unknown background of the seller,

Chris decided to contact them directly.

It transpired that the seller wasn't involved in underworld activity,

but Chris was surprised at their response to his inquiry.

I said, "Look, um, you're selling a stolen work of art"

and she said, "Oh, no, no, no, I'm not doing that at all. This was stolen from me."

And I said, "Oh, that's interesting, so you're our theft victim."

The woman was both the current seller

and the victim of the 1993 theft.

This was a major surprise to Chris.

He was determined to get to the bottom of where the painting had been for the last 19 years,

so he questioned the woman further.

I said, "Well, could you tell me the circumstances of how you recovered it?"

She said, "Oh, yes, my sister was shopping, found the piece,

"and then she remembered it was mine and she bought it, and then I bought it from her."

Having received £10,000 from her insurance company

for the loss of the portrait 19 years earlier,

the woman could potentially be facing a fraud charge.

However, with no proof that it was anything more sinister than a coincidence,

Chris had to believe her.

Advised by the original insurer,

Chris gave the woman two options to avoid criminal proceedings.

Keep the painting, and reimburse your insurance company

or release your claim to the piece altogether.

Despite escaping a criminal prosecution,

the seller had a wish of her own.

Then she called me and said, "Do I have to give you the frame?"

She goes, "I paid a lot of money for that frame." And I said,

"You're just getting by without being charged with insurance fraud,

"and you're asking me to keep the frame?!"

She goes, "You're probably right. OK, you can have the frame."

With the painting recovered, and held safely by the Art Loss Register,

Chris entered it into an auction at Bonhams.

The piece has lost value since the insurance company paid out,

which happens, um, and it's possible that this piece could sell

for anywhere between £5,000 and £8,000.

As crazy as some of the scenarios that I have seen,

it would not surprise me if she showed up and bid on this thing again.

It's the police! Can you open up, please?

Today, officers from the Met Police Traffic Unit

are raiding an accident management company suspected of fraud.

They've completed a search for evidence at a suspect's flat.

DI Hindmarsh has driven to a second location to continue the operation.

I'm outside the accident management company now.

At the premises, DI Hindmarsh is joined by a small team of Met Police officers.

They have a member of staff from the company with them.

He is under arrest.

-Are they scanned onto the computer?

-Scanned, yeah.

Yes, so really then, most of what is in there is scanned on,

-and it's on the computer, yeah?

-OK.

The search begins.

Nearly everything in the office is placed in evidence bags.

Of great interest to the Traffic Unit

is a large quantity of cash found in one of the filing cabinets.

DI Hindmarsh leaves the officers to continue their search

as he's needed back at the location of the raided flat.

We're just on our way back to, um, the address of the gentleman who wasn't in

because we've got two vehicles that we believe have been used

in this particular crime and, er, as such, we're going to seize them.

The company secretary was later sentenced to 12 months

in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud.

And one of the arrested men who allowed his vehicle to be used

and submitted a fake claim was sentenced to four months in prison.

We're really pleased with the result.

This has been about eight or nine months of work to get to the arrest phase

so to get the result that we have, yes, we're really, really pleased.

But the work continues.