Episode 5 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud in the UK is reaching epidemic levels

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

Whoa!

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...

MAN: That's the subject out the vehicle.

..sophisticated data analysis techniques

and highly skilled, dedicated police units...

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

..they're catching criminals red-handed.

All those conmen, scammers and cheats on the fiddle,

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

Today, the police insurance fraud team, IFED, is hunting down suspects.

He was running out the back door, so don't say there's no problem.

Surveillance footage is used to quash a hugely exaggerated compensation claim.

Eureka! It's a really good moment

to catch this woman doing what she was doing.

-And a hire-car smash goes viral.

-MAN: Whoa!

Good for YouTube, not very good for us,

not very good for business and not good for him.

With ever-increasing amounts of traffic on the roads,

minor accidents are unavoidable.

A busy town in Essex was the scene of one such incident

involving a bus.

Five months later, the bus company heard from Emma Piper,

one of the passengers who'd been on board.

She claimed that she'd been injured as a result.

Lee Ingram from First Group's Transportation Claims division

worked on the case.

Ms Piper alleges that on 27th June 2003

a bus had overshot the turning

and was reversing back when it clipped the kerb and a sign.

She's alleging that she was sat at the back of the bus

with her child on her lap and she subsequently injured her back.

The team started an investigation.

They began by talking to the driver

but immediately drew a blank when they asked him what had happened.

Of this particular occasion, he had no recollection.

It seemed as if the original accident had been minor.

We therefore made quite a low offer to her.

But she rejected the offer

and went on to claim that she was suffering from a long list of health issues,

including back problems and walking difficulties.

She was claiming the higher level of Disability Living Allowance,

which would suggest that she would have a severe walking difficulty

and in some circumstances, she could not walk at all.

She's also claiming that she was unable to lift her child.

The claimant states that following this accident, all of her hobbies ceased.

One of her hobbies was actually roller-skating.

She carried on to claim that she was unfit for any type of work

and would not be able to work again in the future.

The severity of the alleged injuries meant

the amount she was claiming for was enormous.

The claim submitted was round about the half million mark in total.

Lee and his team decided to place Emma Piper under surveillance.

What they found was a revelation and totally contradicted her claim.

The most obvious thing that jumps out is her removing things from the rear of the car,

which at one stage included her holding her handbag,

which seems to be quite a hefty handbag, at arm's length

and also managing to haul out of the back of the car a car battery.

One of her main complaints is that she couldn't lift and carry her children.

She is clearly seen to be doing this.

She also alleged that she had walking difficulties and back pain

but is seen walking freely and carrying heavy items.

She's also seen driving on many occasions,

something she claimed caused discomfort.

When we saw this, the actual extent of the things that she was doing

just made us think, "Eureka!"

It's a really good moment to catch this woman doing what she was doing.

And her claim to have been forced to give up the hobbies she loved

also appeared to be in dispute.

We made some checks with the club of which she was a member for roller-skating

and spoke to the manager of the roller rink,

who kindly provided us with records of her subsequent attendance.

And there were also incidents where she had reported injuries to them

after she had been skating.

During a speed-skating session

she had managed to skate into the end wall and winded herself.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, Piper insisted

on pursuing her huge claim and both sides ended up in court

more than once.

We actually had 26 court hearings, three appeals and three trials.

It was impossible to argue with the surveillance evidence

and the final result was unsurprising.

The judge found Ms Piper to be wholly unreliable.

The judge found that there may have been an incident

but if there was, it had only caused a very short period of injury to the claimant.

Subsequently, he made an award of just under £1,050.

That is something like 0.2% of the original claim that was submitted.

But the story didn't end there for Piper.

In the event that a reasonable offer is made and then rejected,

when the judge finally makes his decision

he is going to award costs in your favour

and that is exactly what's happened in this case.

She subsequently has to foot the bill for the legal costs.

The costs will run into tens of thousands of pounds

and we do intend to fully pursue Ms Piper for that money.

Emma Piper's greed ultimately led to her downfall

and instead of walking away with compensation,

she's now left with a huge bill.

This is a great result for First Group

in that we managed to successfully defend

what could potentially have been a very large claim.

One of the UK's biggest insurance fraud rings is busted.

That would have represented a loss to the industry

of about £6.5 million.

And a driver is left with a hefty bill

after taking a hire car for a spin on a race track.

-Whoa!

-He wouldn't have taken his own car on this race day,

so why on earth is he taking our car?

Combating the ever-increasing threat of insurance fraud is an elite police squad

known as IFED, the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department.

IFED is a 35-strong unit that works tirelessly

to hunt down and prosecute insurance fraudsters,

wherever they may be, throughout England and Wales.

They've made over 300 arrests

and have saved millions of pounds in fraudulent insurance claims,

money which, ultimately, goes back in our pockets.

From now on, fraudsters need to watch their backs.

Since the formation of IFED in January 2012,

the goalposts have moved

and now, if you commit insurance fraud,

there's every chance you may get a knock on your front door.

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

Head of IFED, DCI David Wood, and DC Tom Hill are working on a case of insurance fraud

involving on-line motor insurance policies.

The investigation has reached the stage where they're ready to make arrests

and collect hard evidence of suspected criminal activity.

We're going to execute a search warrant

for an insurance fraud.

The suspects are believed to be what's known as ghost brokers,

a term for when fraudsters falsify details such as ages and addresses

to get the cheapest possible insurance deal

and then sell it on to third parties

at a substantial profit.

Innocent policy holders scammed by the ghost brokers

often have no idea their insurance isn't worth the paper it's written on.

The next step in the investigation is to gather evidence

to strengthen their case,

so the IFED team is about to pay the suspects an early morning visit.

So we've got a search warrant to search

and we'll seize computer equipment and mobile phones

that we were believe were used to take out the policies.

What we don't know is what's going to be behind the door - we can do checks, research and intelligence.

However, you never actually know until you go through the door,

so you've got to be on your toes.

The IFED team needs to find the three main suspects

and also potential evidence in the form of computer equipment

that links them to the suspected scam.

The IFED team, together with support from the local police force,

has arrived outside the house where they believe the three suspects live.

What we're doing is we're all getting in position.

We're covering the back should anyone try and get away

or any evidence get discarded from the back of the property.

Once we're ready, we'll knock on the door.

Let's do it, lads.

Police!

-Morning.

-Morning.

-We're police officers.

We've got a search warrant.

After a delay, they're let into the house

and have to move quickly to lock down the building

and identify the suspects they want to arrest.

Who's in here?

The occupants are less than happy to see IFED.

SPEECH BLEEPED OUT

The IFED team takes the man and woman into the front room to arrest them

but so far, there's no sign of the third suspect.

Let me explain. We've got a search warrant for the address

-which relates to insurance fraud.

-MAN:

-Sorry?

-Do you speak English?

-WOMAN: Yes. I do.

So you'll come to the police station and we'll interview you.

-OK, no problem.

-Yeah?

There's a problem when the suspects start speaking to each other in another language.

Just stop a minute. Do you mind speaking in English?

Just speak in English, OK? Otherwise we'll take one of you to the car.

-That's all right.

-Just speak in English, OK?

MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY

Tom needs to ensure that they're not exchanging information

that could affect his case.

The delay in gaining access to the property has made the team suspicious

and they check out the back yard.

We're a little bit concerned that it took them some time to open the door.

We have got power of entry

but we don't like to smash people's doors down unless we have to.

We're looking for electronic devices

that this fraud has been perpetrated on,

so we're talking computers, laptops, smart phones, perhaps.

And we don't know whether he had sufficient time to come out into the yard

and secrete maybe a telephone, perhaps.

One, two, three.

The search continues inside and it's not long

before they find the computer equipment they're looking for

but in an unexpected place.

Not a common place to keep laptops in, your bathroom, is it?

Decide where you're going to be because you're all over the place.

-I'm just going...

-You're jumping up and running off. Calm down.

You can't be going up and down the stairs.

-I want to see the...

-No, she's all right.

-Just sit down there.

It's clear by now that the third suspect isn't in the house,

so they concentrate on going through the paperwork

and it's not long before DCI David Wood turns up something significant.

What we've got here is a bank statement

for the lady who's just been arrested.

This is good for us because it's showing the actual card payments

going from her bank account to the insurance company.

For example, on one day there are five separate payments

to the one insurance company, each for sums of 40, 50, £60 - that is highly unusual.

There's money coming into the account which we would suspect to be

from people that are buying the bogus policies from these suspects.

And further examination of the bank account shows monies going back to their homeland.

There's a transfer there of £12,000.

That's quite a busy bank account she's got there.

Erm, excuse me, we noticed that by the baby there's a phone.

A mobile phone.

Just underneath the blanket. That's it. We need that.

-Er, no, excuse me, excuse me.

-You just give that to me.

-Yes.

-Whose is that?

-Is this your phone?

-No, my daughter.

Your daughter's phone?

We're happy, though, Tom, aren't we, with the bank statements?

Yeah, and there's so many computers. Over ten. Over ten so far.

Obviously, there's a lot of phones that be used to access the internet,

so we've seized a few phones.

Downstairs, a key piece of suspected evidence has been recovered from its hiding place.

As the IFED team goes through what they've found,

the suspects are taken to a local police station for questioning.

The material they've collected looks promising

but they're still missing a vital part of the puzzle

and perhaps the key to the whole case - the third suspect.

He was running out the back door, so don't say there's no problem.

The Audi RS 4 is a top-of-the-range sports car.

It is typical of the sort of prestige vehicle

that is stocked by Accidents Exchange.

They provide temporary replacement vehicles for policy holders.

Neil Thomas is director of investigative services.

If somebody's involved in a non-fault accident,

they are entitled in law to a replacement like-for-like car.

And that's where Accident Exchange comes in,

supplying the vehicles in question.

In what seemed like a straightforward case,

the company had provided a vehicle to a driver

who'd suffered a non-fault accident

and was waiting for his own car to be fixed.

This particular car was an Audi RS 4 estate car,

which is a sports car,

valued at probably about £40,000 or £50,000 at the time.

So far, so routine

but it wasn't long before Accident Exchange received a phone call from the driver,

who informed them that he needed a replacement car for his replacement car.

Against the odds, he'd had another serious accident.

The client said that he was driving in a country lane,

lost control of the car and collided with a ditch at the side of the road.

Accident Exchange recovered the vehicle

so they could assess the damage.

It was scrap value, really.

A car like that is a very expensive commodity to repair,

so the damage was sufficient that it was written off by the insurance company.

But something about the driver's version of events didn't add up.

We've got 3,000 vehicles and we investigate all collisions,

certainly where the cars are written off.

Our suspicions were aroused because of the level of the damage.

The driver said the accident had happened on a quiet country lane with no witnesses.

There was no proof either way. There's no CCTV.

There's nothing to negate or prove how the collision had occurred.

It was clear that the case needed further investigation.

In common with most top-of-the-range vehicles,

the Audi RS 4 is fitted with a raft of sophisticated security features,

including a tracking system.

We examined the technology within the vehicle,

which indicated that, firstly, the accident hadn't happened how he said

and, secondly, it wasn't in the location he said it was.

The driver said he crashed the car on a B road in Castle Combe, Wiltshire.

The tracker showed that he was in Castle Combe but not on a B road.

The intelligence we got from the car and the investigation

showed that this guy had taken the car to a race track for a race day.

It was a breakthrough

and if the driver hadn't had such a top-of-the-range car, he might not have been caught out.

The tracker showed he'd lied about the location

and the crash had actually happened on a race track during an open day.

Rodney Gooch works at Castle Combe Circuit.

Castle Combe Circuit was established in 1950

on the site of an old wartime airbase,

been racing ever since.

Seen most of the big names in British motor racing.

It's a very demanding track. It's 1.85 miles around.

It has very challenging corners.

My advice to you, as always, when you start off, take it steady.

But more evidence was to come

in the form of a video clip of the race day that appeared on line.

The clip shows the shocking moment

when the driver of the silver Audi estate loses control.

TYRES SCREECH

-MAN:

-Whoa!

Then we checked this YouTube video,

we could obviously see it was our car.

So we'd got video evidence showing that the collision

hadn't happened how the client told us.

It had happened on the race track

and the way he was driving, for me, it wasn't a surprise

-that he had a collision.

-Whoa!

In addition, plenty of witnesses had seen the crash.

Bob Honeysett works on the Castle Combe recovery team.

The car came round Camp Corner, started drifting out.

I remember it clearly because I thought he'd held it

and then the car snapped back,

and as he snapped back, he went straight into the tyre wall.

The session was stopped.

As we were loading the car onto the flatbed truck,

the driver was out there and he was ripping the number plates off the car.

And I was asking him, "Why are you doing that?"

And he said, "Oh, I don't want anybody to know who it belongs to."

We were quite suspicious then.

It was quite a spectacular crash.

Good for YouTube, not very good for us,

not good for business and not good for him.

The truth behind the crash had finally come out

but one thing was still unclear -

why the driver had lied to Accident Exchange in the first place.

The answer lay in the terms of his insurance cover,

which didn't include driving on race tracks.

He knew he wasn't insured.

He wouldn't have taken his own car for this race day, so why did he take ours?

With a wealth of evidence stacked against the driver,

Accident Exchange decided to act.

He denied it first of all

but when we said we'd got a YouTube video,

he accepted that he had taken it to a race track day,

he had written it off

and he subsequently paid us for the damage to the car.

With no insurance cover, he had to pay the entire amount out of his own pocket,

a sum of £25,000.

With some of the cars, people think it's a hire car,

they don't have to look after it.

We've got a different view because obviously it's a very nice car

and we expect clients to look after them

as they would their own car.

TYRES SCREECH

Whoa!

The Insurance Fraud Bureau, the IFB, is

a body set up by the insurance industry

to combat insurance fraud.

In 2007, they began an investigation

which ended up revealing one of the biggest motor insurance frauds ever

in the UK, involving a whopping £6.5 million.

But it all began with a small-scale investigation

into similar claims linked to the same accident management company,

Real Accident Helpline.

Ben Fletcher is head of the IFB.

It was run by two people. The director was Naqshbandi

and the company secretary was Hillaman.

Accident management companies operate by processing insurance claims on behalf of drivers.

The majority are genuine

but an increasing number are used by criminals

as a front for fraudulent activities.

The IFB examined the evidence that had been forwarded to them.

With Real Accident Helpline,

there were a number of similarities with the claims,

which caused concern.

There were some collisions that had been alleged to have happened where they didn't.

The policies were taken out using identities

which when we started to do investigation work,

the people behind those policies didn't exist.

A lot of the people that were on the books of Real Accident Helpline were ghosts.

By now it was clear that Real Accident Helpline was linked

to fraudulent activity.

The IFB contacted the Metropolitan Police.

DC Tony Recchia led the case.

My initial thoughts were

that this would be quite a quick investigation.

However, it wasn't long before we realised

that there was a lot more to this.

What set alarm bells ringing was

the sheer number of claims being put through

and how similar they were.

Most of their collisions were rear-end shunts

because they realised that these are very rarely contested by the insurers.

The investigation moved on to the two men behind Real Accident Helpline.

We quickly found out that they were using overseas travel.

We found various photographs and documents

linking them to exotic cars.

They were always immaculately dressed, wearing designer clothes.

So they were living quite a good lifestyle, overtly.

But living the high life isn't cheap

and Naqshbandi and Hillaman made the mistake

of processing so many claims they weren't able to cover their tracks.

To save time, they started repeating names, details and locations.

Most of these companies, they get a bit blase and a bit greedy

and that opens a few more doors.

One such door revealed a key piece of evidence

that allowed the police investigation to move to the next level.

The asset protection unit at credit hire company Accident Exchange

was yet again on the case.

They were conducting a separate investigation

into a credit hire claim also linked to Naqshbandi.

Our suspicions were that he was going to use our car

as part of a staged accident.

A staged accident is an accident that is deliberately caused

in order to create a fraudulent and inflated insurance claim.

The company took steps to recover the car

in what's known as a snatch-back procedure.

Part of the procedure is that we take the car back

and bring it back to Accident Exchange headquarters

and it's searched by my staff under video conditions.

When we searched the car we found some documentation in it.

There were things like claim forms,

there were things like sketches of accidents.

It was obvious to us that the paperwork related to

the arrangement or the execution of a staged accident.

Accident Exchange immediately shared their information with the police,

who linked it to their existing Real Accident Helpline investigation.

It was the first solid piece of evidence that we had obtained.

The rest of it was just claim forms from insurance companies.

It was a Eureka moment, dare I say,

because it definitely linked these people

and opened the door to their corrupt dealings

with members of the public.

Tony and his team moved quickly to shut the fraud down

by obtaining search warrants to raid the homes of Naqshbandi and Hillaman.

Inside of these home addresses, we found a large amount of cash.

It was about £60,000 that we found but it was in various bundles.

People would hide money in their houses

because they either don't trust the banks, which is very, very rare,

or it's because it's ill-gotten gains.

They also raided the offices of Real Accident Helpline

and found evidence of fraud in the shape of multiple claim forms.

The police realised that Naqshbandi and Hillaman were processing

fraudulent claims on an industrial scale.

Real Accident Helpline dealt with in the region of 250 accidents

and up to 1,000 people.

That affected about 20 insurers

and had those claims been paid, that would have represented

a financial loss to the industry of about £6.5 million.

It was one of the biggest motor insurance frauds

ever uncovered in the UK.

Ultimately, it was the greed and the arrogance

of Naqshbandi and Hillaman that was their downfall.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against them,

the two men initially pleaded not guilty when the case reached court

but Hillaman subsequently admitted his guilt.

Masi Naqshbandi on the other hand maintained his innocence.

The case went to trial at Croydon Crown Court.

At the end of a five-week trial

and due to the sheer weight of evidence against him,

a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to defraud.

Masi Naqshbandi was given seven years, three months,

which I believe is still the longest sentence

for a crash for cash kind of fraud.

And Sabaoon Hillaman was given four years, ten months.

It's ironic that they chose to call their business Real Accident Helpline

given that the vast majority of the 250 claims

were for people that didn't exist and accidents that never happened.

IFED, the City of London Police's Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department,

has raided an address in connection with a suspected motor insurance fraud case.

They've tracked down two suspects

and found potential evidence hidden in a bathroom and a baby's cot.

But they're still after the third suspect.

It's vital that he's apprehended quickly,

in case he gets rid of evidence or covers his tracks.

We're satisfied with what we've seized at this address

and we've got the two main suspects.

There is a third suspect who lives in the same street

and we do need to speak to him,

so now we're going to give him a knock

and see what he's got to say.

Morning! Open up! It's the police.

-Hello.

-Hello. Good morning, sorry to disturb you, sir.

I'm from London City police.

We're looking to try and find whether a male lives here.

Have you seen this man before?

-No.

-No? OK.

That address was of interest because the address has been used

as part of the scam.

But those people living there, and they've been there over a year,

they're not part of it.

So we've had to knock them up early

but that address does feature in the enquiry

but they haven't committed an offence, therefore we've taken it no further.

It turned out that the suspects had previously lived in the second house,

which is why the suspicious activity had been linked to that address.

It's vital that IFED arrest the third suspect

as quickly as possible

to prevent them destroying evidence or skipping town.

They hit the road to follow up a lead on a third address.

This is an address that has come up on a recent bit of intelligence that we've worked on.

Same surname as the other people we've arrested.

As soon as the door is opened, the IFED team spot someone they recognise.

You've just come from the other address.

A boy from the first house who said he was going to school

has instead turned up here,

suggesting that the occupants of both houses are linked.

Can I come in and I'll talk to you?

Why were you running out the back door?

-Ask him why he was running out the back door.

-All three of you.

-No problem. He was...

-Well, there is...

There is a problem because he was running out the back door,

so don't say there's no problem.

If there's no problem, people don't run out the back door.

The inhabitants deny any knowledge of the third suspect.

They're asked to supply ID,

which the IFED team cross checks with a printout of the man's details.

It looks like IFED has its man.

Just come here a minute. I'll explain what's going to happen.

I'm from the City Of London Police.

We're investigating an insurance fraud.

A fraud, yeah, for motor car insurance, car insurance.

-Yes.

-OK? I'm arresting you on suspicion of fraud by false representation, OK?

It may harm your defence if you don't mention something which you later rely on in court.

HANDCUFFS CLICKING

Overall, it's been a successful operation this morning.

We found several items of evidence

that will be crucial to the ongoing investigation.

We set out to get three people, we've got those in custody

and they'll be interviewed back at the police station

and the enquiry goes on.

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