Episode 2 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud in the UK is reaching epidemic levels

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

MAN: Whoo!

Deliberate crashes, bogus personal injury claims,

even phantom pets.

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...

The subject is out the vehicle.

..sophisticated data analysis techniques...

..and highly skilled dedicated police units...

Police! Don't move. Stay where you are.

..they're catching the criminals red-handed.

All those con men, scammers and cheats on the fiddle,

now they're caught in the act and claimed and shamed.

It's man versus the food aisle

as a trip leads to a huge personal injury claim.

There is a more sinister underlying background to this.

A specialist fraud-busting force are on the hunt

for two men suspected of defrauding a charity.

This particular case is quite unpleasant.

And a 13-tonne fire truck is blamed for wrecking a car.

Personally, I think it's a disgrace. It's sickening.

Supermarket shopping - you know what it's like.

So many choices. Mayonnaise... No, bread. Where are the peaches?

Ah, half-price toothpaste!

But watch your step.

Before you know it, you've tripped over the debris left on the floor by a careless shelf stacker.

This is a supermarket in Northern Ireland.

The man on the floor, Daniel Braniff, looks to be

in a lot of pain.

That's because he's just taken a hard fall in this food aisle.

The culprit - some of this.

The allegation was that he fell over some plastic banding in the shop.

What had started out as a trip to the supermarket

was now going to end up as a visit to A&E.

He went to the hospital

and sought treatment for this soft tissue injury

to his left side.

With an injury that could potentially hinder him for months,

Daniel Braniff decided to make a claim against the supermarket.

Mr Braniff brought the claim to our attention

the day after the alleged incident.

Slipping in a supermarket is not uncommon

and it's why supermarkets pay a lot of attention

to ensuring that their aisles are clean and clear.

It seemed the supermarket Braniff had been shopping in

hadn't been so diligent with its tidiness.

It was looking like a potentially costly mistake.

Daniel Braniff submitted a £12,000 injury claim against it

and he had a piece of physical evidence to support his claim

in the form of the plastic strap

which he'd scooped up after the accident.

Solid evidence or not, the claim would have to be thoroughly checked.

The expert handlers at the insurance company dealing with the case

set about their work.

Very soon, alarm bells were ringing.

The insurance company felt that this claim needed a closer look.

They requested to see the CCTV footage from the supermarket

at the time of the incident.

In the footage, you'll see Mr Braniff talking on his mobile phone

and walking around the store.

All fairly innocuous.

But when Daniel Braniff finishes his phone call,

his actions take a bizarre twist.

When we first saw the video containing Mr Braniff's accident,

frankly, we couldn't believe that he had the effrontery

to make a claim for this.

That's because the footage does not reveal

Daniel Braniff innocently walking into the plastic hazard in front of him,

as his claim would have you believe.

Instead, it shows this -

Braniff, fully aware of the plastic strapping on the floor,

executing an extremely unconvincing trip.

There's no sophistication to this attempted fraud at all.

It is really quite comical.

The whole farce begins 40 seconds before the trip.

The CCTV footage shows Braniff exiting the aisle,

at which point he treads on the packaging.

Instantly he puts his devious plan into action.

It's quite clear that in the video,

he carefully tries to manoeuvre

a piece of plastic banding around his foot,

and when he's quite comfortable that nobody is looking,

he then falls over.

We immediately decided not to pay this claim

and took Mr Braniff to the Police Service of Northern Ireland,

where we alleged that he had attempted to defraud us

and, ultimately, the supermarket.

Appearing in court, Daniel Braniff pleaded guilty

and was sentenced to four months in custody suspended for three years

and fined £250.

When we saw the footage, it was one of those that drew people around to look at it.

But there is a more sinister, underlying background to this

because ultimately, this person is making

a substantial claim for damages against the supermarket

and, ultimately, the insurer,

and it is clear, out and out fraud.

Any wannabe fraudsters should tread very carefully.

In the next few months, a register of convicted fraudsters is being rolled out.

Accessible to every major insurance company in Britain,

anyone on the list might find it a lot harder to get cheap insurance.

People should think again before they get tempted to do this

because the consequences are, they will get prosecuted

and their name will be put on the insurance fraud register,

which will impact them in the future.

Insurance fraud is on the rise

and if you have insurance of any kind, you're footing the bill.

But the fraudsters had better watch their backs.

IFED is a 35-strong unit

that works tirelessly to hunt down and prosecute insurance fraudsters,

wherever they might be throughout England and Wales.

Through a combination of investigation, industry connections

and the element of surprise...

they've made over 300 arrests

and stopped millions of pounds from going to the criminals,

money which ultimately goes back in our pockets.

It's highly likely now, if you commit any insurance fraud,

you will get caught.

It's 6am and two IFED teams are on the road.

The two teams are 90 miles apart

but both heading to raid locations linked to a single bank account.

Head of IFED, DCI David Wood, is attending the operation.

We're on our way to our suspect's address

and there's another car with two officers

that are going to meet us nearby.

This particular case is quite unpleasant

because the victims are actually a children's charity.

The charity has had its bank account details stolen.

Whoever stole them is now using the account to purchase motor vehicle insurance.

Despite living in different cities,

the two men being targeted by IFED today

are both suspected of using the same charity bank account details.

It's particularly unpleasant. However, we must remain professional.

DCI Wood's team arrive at the raid location at 6:15.

We're never exactly sure who's going to be there when we get there

but this guy should be there with his family

but we don't know, so we've got to be on our toes.

Let's see who's here.

That's the IFED knock on the door.

Hi. We're from the City of London Police.

OK, I'm looking...

The man who has opened the door is not the suspect.

-OK.

-And I believe that he resides here.

-Yes.

Is he around at home?

DCI Woods' suspicions are confirmed.

The suspect does live at the property

but, despite it being 6:20am, he's not in.

We made contact with him via telephone

and it's hoped that we're going to meet him very shortly.

He won't give us his current location.

However, we're keen to speak to him

and we're hoping that he's going to be with us -

it's now 25 past six - by eight o'clock.

We'll be speaking to him, fingers crossed.

But now we're in his hands a little bit

because we don't know exactly where he is.

90 miles away, the other IFED team is closing in on its raid address.

We're all travelling now in convoy to the address

where we hope to find our suspect.

We're just going to be knocking on the address here...

KNOCKING ..where we expect the suspect to be.

The suspect in this address is also under investigation

for purchasing insurance using the same stolen details

of the same charity bank account.

Just to make sure nobody else is here.

The team are just checking upstairs to see if anybody else is upstairs

and to see if our suspect's here.

What we're here for today is a enquiry in relation to an insurance policy

which was taken out with fraudulent bank details.

We don't believe that the person who took that policy out,

-the car was registered to you, it was your vehicle...

-Yeah.

..taken out over the internet, but that person didn't have permission to use the bank details

-to take out that policy, OK?

-Yeah.

I believe that you're responsible for that

and as such, I'm arresting you for Fraud by false representation.

You do not have to say anything

but it may harm your defence if you do not mention under questioning

something which you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

IFED is closing in on its target.

The man on the left is very angry and with good reason.

He's just had a very frightening experience.

He was in the passenger seat of the black car

when a fire engine smashed into it.

He claimed that we hit his vehicle with sufficient force

to actually lift it up off the ground,

push it towards the pumps on the station forecourt

and as a result of that heavy collision,

caused him whiplash injuries.

A fire engine is not the kind of vehicle you want to tangle with.

The average fire engine is 7m long, 2.5m wide

and weighs in at a hefty 13 tonnes.

It's easy to understand how a behemoth like this

could wreck a car and damage a neck in one swipe.

Immediately after the crash, two men came over to our vehicle.

Our driver and the officer in charge of the vehicle have got out,

had a word with them, had a look at the damage to their vehicle

and the minor damage to our vehicle,

exchanged all their insurance details

and then we basically got back on the fire engine and left the scene.

The claimant's whiplash wasn't going away

and there were further complications to come.

He claimed injury to his neck, his shoulders,

which were quite severe for the first two months.

They lasted seven months in total.

He also claimed he'd suffered psychiatric injury

and had flashbacks for three to four weeks

and he was anxious driving his vehicle for a total period of four months.

The severely inconvenienced crash victim decided to make a claim

against the Greater Manchester fire brigade.

That claim was valued at about £10,000,

taking into account his damages, his own solicitor's costs

and the cost to the Greater Manchester Fire Service.

It was an annoying situation for the Greater Manchester Fire Brigade.

Because it self-insures, the £10,000 was going to have to come out of its own pocket.

This isn't something whereby the insurers are being affected by it.

It's actually the public organisation that's being affected by it

and any kind of money that goes out of the organisation without good cause

will have an impact, ultimately, on front-line services.

Before the £10,000 could be paid out,

as standard, the Greater Manchester Fire Service needed to check

their own incident report against the claim.

There were so many inconsistencies with the claim

which caused us to look at it in detail.

The fire engine suffered minor cosmetic damage to the handle of the locker

and the front indicator.

The fire-fighters hardly noticed the incident at all.

They only became aware of it when they heard a car horn.

Suddenly, the brakes were put on the claim.

The fire crew's version of events were in stark contrast

to the claimant's description of being in a car that was thrown in the air.

The fire brigade, wanting to know more, decided to roll out some technology.

The cameras that are on board, there is one pointing in every direction.

There's one in the front cab, there's one on either side

and then there's one at roof level on the rear of the vehicle.

Luckily, one of the cameras had a clear view of the garage forecourt.

Everyone was about to find out

what happened on the day of the collision.

The garage forecourt was quite busy on that night.

There was also a car wash that wasn't that far away

from where the actual vehicle, our vehicle and their vehicle, was parked.

So then when our fire engine came to drive away from the pumps,

it was a really tight turn.

And here is the video footage.

Just as the claimant reported,

the fire engine rams into the front of the parked car,

sending it and its occupant flying towards one of the petrol pumps.

Hang on - did I just miss that?

No. The car doesn't move at all.

The CCTV footage showed the fire engine moving off very slowly,

turning across the front of the claimant's vehicle

and it shows the touching of the vehicles.

You can see from the CCTV footage

that the vehicle moves hardly, if at all.

The collision wasn't dangerous in any way.

From the CCTV footage, this was a really low-speed, minor collision

and the estimate is that we were doing less than 5mph.

Flying cars, whiplash and psychological damage -

all a lie.

The whole claim from the car passenger was

an opportunistic attempt at fraud.

The outcome of this case was, once we disclosed the CCTV footage,

the claimant realised the game was over

and he quickly discontinued the claim

before he got into more serious trouble.

Unfortunately, he had to repay nearly £6,000 of legal costs

to the defendant.

He put himself at risk of a criminal prosecution

and he was reported in the local newspaper,

the Manchester Evening News.

Personally, I think it's a disgrace. It's sickening.

These people put their lives at risk every hour of the day,

protecting us, our families, our children, our property

and this how they're repaid by some sectors of society.

It's disgraceful. Unbelievable.

I'd say to anybody who's thinking about making any kind of claim like this,

don't do it.

We will investigate every claim that is made

and certainly, every one of our vehicles has CCTV cameras

which point in every direction,

so we will find out that it's a fraudulent claim.

On Britain's busy roads, there are thousands of collisions every day.

If you're involved in one,

you might want some professional help processing your claim.

Who do you turn to?

If you've had a non-fault claim

you might go to a claims management company after the accident

for them to help you pursue your claim against the insurance company.

A claims management company will help you with the complex process

of paperwork, medical examinations, vehicle repair

and temporary vehicle hire.

They sound like the white knights of the road,

there when you really need them.

That might be true of most of them but it turns out,

a growing number of claims management companies are committing insurance fraud.

Fraudulent claims management companies use

a variety of different techniques to commit fraud

and one of their methods is very dangerous -

the induced accident.

So this is where a gang of criminals will take a vehicle

out onto a public road, they'll pay somebody to drive that car

and induce accidents.

They're effectively paying drivers to cause accidents on public roads.

After tricking an innocent person into crashing into one of their paid drivers,

the fraudulent claims management company will then deal with the claim

that results from the induced collision.

It's a big earner for the fraudsters.

Crash for cash scams cost the industry nearly £400 million a year.

That equates to a lot of money to all of us on our premiums.

One claims management company, Kami Claims,

operating out of north London,

was a big fan of the induced accident.

And if you were a responsible car owner with insurance,

you were a potential crash target for the crooked Kami Claims.

In order for the frauds that Kami Claims were committing to succeed,

they required innocent members of the public to be the victims of their scams,

so they were looking for people that were insured,

people that were on the school run,

people that were innocent members of the public, had paid their premium,

so they could then make a fraudulent claim on their policies.

They had been getting away with it for years,

generating millions of pounds' worth of fraudulent claims in the process.

Things were looking good for the north London business

but it wasn't going to last.

Ten miles across town in west London,

a powerful enemy had clocked the fraudulent claims management company

and was closing in.

In the summer of 2012, DI Hindmarsh and his unit

were in the final stages of an investigation into Kami Claims.

We received information that a particular claims management company

operating out of north London

were involved in setting up induced collisions

and then dealing with the claims

and, obviously, reaping the rewards of the financial benefit.

Strengthening their position, the Met Traffic Unit has many allies

in the world of insurance.

One of them is the Insurance Fraud Bureau.

It has access to information

about nearly every insurance policy in the country.

That amount of information gives you a serious advantage

when tackling fraudsters.

A key part of the role of the IFB is to find the trends and patterns

that are invisible to other parts of the industry.

And very quickly, a pattern emerged.

And when we started to look at

the claims that were connected to Kami Claims,

there were a suspicious number of similarities

between all the accidents

and if you had a genuine claims management company,

you'd expect them to deal with a variety of different types of claims.

The Met Traffic Unit and the IFB were closing in.

And it seemed that Kami Claims' penchant for causing crashes

could be their downfall.

Kami Claims used similar methods for all the claims they pursued.

They were induced accidents and they were all in the London area

and the accidents that were taking place were

commonly on roundabouts or slip roads.

The evidence was stacked against

the still-active fraudulent claims management company.

DI Hindmarsh was ready to pounce.

In the summer of 2012, we filmed the Met Traffic Unit

as they brought down the fraudulent Kami Claims.

They were an organised criminal gang that needed to be stopped.

Once we were happy we'd looked at all of the evidence that we had,

we took the steps to obtain a number of search warrants.

I'm outside the company now.

On the day of the raids, we did three search warrants,

one on the claims management company,

which resulted in some cash and some fraudulent documents being recovered.

This was one of the biggest fraudulent claims management companies ever investigated.

The evidence trail continued.

We then went to the address

of one of the claims management company owners.

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

Needing more evidence, the Met Traffic Unit was very keen

to gain entry to the flat.

We seized a number of documents from that address.

There was a great deal of paperwork seized.

I think it related to somewhere in the region of 250 claims

that they were currently dealing with on behalf of, erm, customers.

DI Hindmarsh and his unit hadn't just gone for paperwork.

They were also going to take the tools of the trade from the fraudsters.

We also seized around about ten cars.

We were able to show that these particular vehicles

had been involved in a crime.

Effectively, they were exhibits, as you would seize a forged document.

That was the reason that we took the cars.

The raid had been a complete success.

The matter was listed at Southwark Crown Court on 1st February 2013.

The two people who we charged was Ion Vaduva and Andre Malagiac.

They had both been charged with conspiracy to defraud the insurance industry

and they both pleaded guilty.

Another crash for cash gang had been brought down by the Met Traffic Unit

and the IFB,

making our roads a little bit safer to drive on.

It's important that claims management companies like Kami Claims are shut down.

It's not a victimless crime.

Firstly, in order to make a lot of these claims,

innocent members of the public's safety is being put at risk.

Secondly, insurance companies are not the only people that pay for this fraud.

Ultimately, as consumers, we all pay for the cost in our premiums.

Today, the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, IFED,

is tracking down two suspects 90 miles apart.

Both suspects are alleged to have used stolen bank account details

in order to purchase vehicle insurance.

This particular case is quite unpleasant

because the victims are actually a children's charity.

The team, led by DCI David Wood, is lying in wait for its suspect

who wasn't at his home address this morning.

90 miles away, the other IFED team has arrested its suspect.

We're going to search these premises.

We have authority to do it under section 32 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act

-for anything in relation to that offence or any other offence of a similar nature, OK?

-All right.

Do you have anything within these premises that you want to show us

-in relation to the policy that I talked about?

-No.

-OK.

All right. If you bear with us, we'll conduct the search

-and then we'll go from here to the local police station, OK?

-OK.

I'll just ask you to sit tight and assist us with that, OK?

The search for potential evidence of fraud begins.

Specifically, IFED is looking for items relating to the insurance purchased

with the charity's stolen bank account details.

IFED decides to focus the search on the suspect's bedroom.

One or two items in here that I'll be looking to seize.

A computer, because he's taken out the policy using his computer.

A cluttered surface in the suspect's room draws the attention

of DI Angela Rogers.

OK, that's just a mobile phone

that was on the top of the chest of drawers.

DI Rogers methodically sifts through the stacks of paperwork

and makes a potentially rewarding find

in the form of a bank statement.

This one's just in another name that I don't recognise,

so we'll just double check this one.

I'd be concerned as to why they've got a bank account in somebody else's name.

The address is for this address.

I'm concerned that it's been opened in a false name.

Amongst the clutter, DI Rogers unearths

another vehicle registration document linked to the stolen bank account details.

This is the V5 document for the vehicle he'd insured

using the charity trust account.

The suspect is taken away for further questioning

at a local police station.

The search is over.

It's been a very successful search as far as we're concerned.

It's been a good result for this IFED team

but it's only one half of a two-location raid.

90 miles away, DCI David Woods' patience has paid off.

-Come on, man.

-Let's have a chat in the car.

After a three-hour stake-out, his suspect has finally turned up.

You'll realise we're decent people.

WOMAN POLICE OFFICER SPEAKING

It took a little bit longer than planned

but DCI Wood is a happy man.

The investigation is now fully underway,

suspects are in custody,

so it's been a successful morning, albeit it didn't go exactly to plan

but sometimes these things don't.

But both suspects are now in police detention,

which is the objective of the exercise.

A great outcome for both of IFED's teams

in their on-going fight against the crime of insurance fraud.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd