Episode 3 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud has reached epidemic levels in the UK.

It's costing us more than £1.3 billion every year.

That's almost £3.6 million every day.

Deliberate crashes, bogus personal injuries, even phantom pets.

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

And every year, it's adding around £50 to your insurance bill.

But insurers are fighting back,

exposing just under 15 fake claims every hour.

Armed with covert surveillance systems...

Subject out the vehicle.

..sophisticated data analysis techniques...

SHOUTING

..and a number of highly skilled police units..

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

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

Just don't lie to us.

All those conmen,

scammers and cheats on the fiddle are now caught in the act...

and claimed and shamed.

Today, a car-con's dodgy insurance policies are uncovered...

If you write off your car

when you have one of these policies,

the cost of the damage will have to be borne by you.

And a phoney caller is encouraged to come clean.

Now matter how experienced you are behind the wheel,

every time you take to the road, there's a risk.

Motor insurance offers customers protection

in the event of an accident.

Fraudsters have long being targeting the car insurance industry,

but one particular scam, known as "ghost broking", is a major issue.

A ghost broker will pretend to be a licensed insurance broker

and obtain a cheap policy using false information.

He'll then sell you what appears to be

a genuine insurance policy at a bargain price.

But what you actually receive is a completely bogus certificate

offering zero cover that's not worth the paper it's printed on.

If you buy one of these fake policies in good faith,

the law is crystal clear.

John Beadle knows the consequences of this scam can be severe.

The bottom line with this is that

if you write off your car

when you have one of these policies,

you will be un-covered,

and the cost of the damage, or the loss of your car,

will have to be borne by you, because you will be uninsured.

Purchasing a spurious policy from a ghost broker

could be a financially devastating way

to try and save a few quid on your car insurance.

Meet Jeffrey Derek King.

He used to hire cars to people, sell jewellery...

A wheeler-dealer who could even sell you a cheap car insurance policy.

But his deals on wheels weren't all they were cracked up to be.

Mr King came to our attention because we spotted a number

of unusual patterns in new policies being taken on

via authorised garage outlets,

where you purchase a new car, and they will

issue you with a policy of insurance.

He would continually contact our company,

disguising his identity, but obviously he leaves footprints

and patterns, telephone numbers, and so forth,

which linked him together.

With alarm bells ringing, John's team dug deeper.

And they discovered 50 policies all connected

by one mobile phone number.

They all led back to a website operated by King.

And in the end we put together

a comprehensive intelligence package on him.

And then, having identified who he actually was,

and then referred that to IFED.

IFED is the City of London Police's

Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department.

A dedicated team of detectives dedicated to stopping

insurance fraud cheats.

There's ever more sophisticated detection tools being used by

the industry.

We're getting more and more cases every day.

This elite squad has prevented millions of pounds being paid

out to criminals in fraudulent claims.

From now on, insurance cheats needs to look over their shoulders.

It's all fraud, it's all crime, and it can all lead to prison.

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

Simon Styles is IFED's financial investigator,

and was part of the team that took on the case.

RSA's enquiries had already identified that King was behaving

very suspiciously by making dozens of calls to them

under various guises.

So, the first thing that IFED detectives did was to take

a closer look at his business activities.

From the outside, Jeffrey King appeared to be

a hard-working individual, an entrepreneur, if you like.

IFED quickly established that King had his fingers in lots of pies.

But it was one of his online enterprises

that stood out in particular.

Mr King had advertised for

the selling of insurance

on 28 occasions via the internet.

Those companies were checked and details from that were taken

which showed that Jeffrey King was behind those advertisements.

And it was from that that the investigation really took

a step forward.

King many have been a man of many trades,

but licensed insurance broker wasn't one of them.

He was selling fake insurance policies which

unlucky recipients believed to be 100% genuine.

IFED quickly sussed out that King was taking advantage of

a special offer available at certain car dealerships,

where customers who'd brought brand-new cars

could claim a week's free insurance cover.

He just obtained the dealer code off a flyer

at any dealership.

He was then able to ring RSA, purporting to be anybody,

and having the details of a registration number,

was able to obtain free seven-day cover.

And as a result of that,

received, by e-mail, the cover.

And it's from that cover he would sell on to

unsuspecting members of the public.

So, King had a source of genuine certificates

he acquired with false information.

He then doctored the document with the details of the individual

he intended to pass the worthless policy off to.

But, little did he know, that IFED were on to him.

And with his MO revealed,

it wasn't long before the case against King

started to accelerate.

I was able to link

the certificates that were purchased by

Mr King to money that was placed in his account.

That came to just over £65,000.

As a financial investigator, it's Simon's job to look for

connections between suspected fraudsters and their income.

And in the case of King, there was no shortage of evidence.

By now, we had obtained evidence that Jeffrey king was acting

as a ghost broker.

We decided to visit his home address

and ask him directly what he was up to.

On the 6th December 2013, officers from IFED carried out

two early-morning raids on addresses linked to Jeffrey Derek King.

DS Craig Mullish heads up a team

that raids his home address.

The plan of action today is to execute

a warrant in Chadwell Heath, Essex, and in addition to that,

simultaneously, there'll be another warrant executed in East London.

The element of surprise is crucial to a successful raid.

Targeting multiple addresses at the same time prevents

communication between any of the suspects, and minimises the

risk of potentially damning evidence from being destroyed.

All our enquiries linked Mr King to the family address.

Just before the raids took place, I identified another address

that he'd recently moved to.

And so we decided to knock on two doors

on the day of Mr King's arrest.

Over in East London, DC Alex Cooley is leading the raid

on King's second potential location.

We have to remain on our guard.

We have no reason to believe the suspect is aware that we're

going to be turning up early in the morning,

so he could react in any one of a whole number of ways.

Today, the evidence that we'll be looking for would be

computers and any device capable of storing data.

Together with documentation relating to insurance policies.

It's not uncommon for suspects to make a dash for it.

So, before knocking on the door,

officers get into position to cover all escape routes.

-Good morning.

-Morning.

HE KNOCKS

Oh, hi. Morning to you. City of London Police.

DS Mullish enters King's home address,

placing him under arrest on suspicion of fraud.

The team then search King's home...

..and after three hours emerge with several bags of key evidence.

Having swept King's property,

DS Mullish inspects his car

for further incriminating documents.

From what you say...

-Yeah.

-..we're not going to see anything in this car, right?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-You stay there.

-OK.

Despite King's casual attitude,

it doesn't take long to find even more evidence.

The document seized from the suspect's vehicle is

a copy of an insurance document in another person's name,

other than the suspect,

which is further evidence of the crime that we're looking into today.

With a hefty haul of evidence bagged and tagged,

it's loaded up, along with King.

The evidence that we've found today relates to various insurance policy

documentation in other peoples' names apart from the suspect.

Which is good evidence to suggest they are absolutely linked

into the investigation that we're currently undertaking,

and we've also seized mobile phones and electrical devices.

Motor documentation, MOT certificates.

All in all, very good evidence.

Over in east London, DC Cooley and his team have searched King's

family home, which has been equally successful.

We found documentation relating to motor insurance policies,

we found a letter reportedly written by the suspect

to an insurance company brokering terms and conditions

on behalf of a reported client.

The haul of evidence meant the brakes had been well and

truly applied to King's operation.

We found a large number of

bogus certificates.

We found original certificates that had been scanned and changed,

and these details had been sent to

unsuspecting members of the public,

to drive around without any cover whatsoever.

This was the evidence IFED needed to take King offline for good.

When given the opportunity to tell his side of the story,

King refused to break down.

He tried to justify the certificates

in his possession by making no comment.

He made no comment throughout the investigation.

He thought it would go away.

But it wasn't going to.

The case proceeded to court, at the Old Bailey,

where King pleaded not guilty to three counts of fraud by

false representation, and one count of money laundering.

But the evidence was overwhelming.

Jeffrey King was found guilty by a unanimous verdict and

he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

King's illegal sales of fake insurance policies had been

shut down for good.

For Simon, it was the end of a long, complex investigation.

But his work wasn't quite done yet.

It was my job to follow the money.

I found that Mr King had made an awful lot of money

from criminal activity.

I managed to return £20,000 to victims of crime.

Job well done.

Jeffrey King thought no-one would come knocking at his door.

He was wrong. This is a message to everyone out there who is thinking,

or is committing, insurance fraud, that we won't stand for it.

Like Mr King, we'll follow you, we'll track you down,

we'll knock on your door, and you will be sentenced and convicted,

and spend time behind bars to think on where you went wrong.

Later, a man is prepared to reverse into another motorist - twice -

for a pay-out.

It makes me angry.

This fraud is... Well, it's disgraceful, really.

Often, it's the first thing we reach for when we wake up

and the last thing we look at before we go to sleep.

Smartphones are now an integral part of modern life.

But, with handsets costing around £500,

they are a high-value commodity which insurance cheats

have identified as an easy way to make a quick buck.

Whether you're calling, texting, e-mailing, sharing, surfing,

or streaming, today's smartphone

is something many just can't live without.

So, what happens if your device gets accidentally damaged, or ditched?

Luckily, there are people like Andy Morris at Assurant Solutions

who protect our phones against all manner of device disasters.

Andy's team received one particular call from a customer

who'd made a few phone faux pas in quick succession.

The very first claim that this individual submitted to us

was for a loss of an iPhone which would have a value of over £500.

That was assessed on its own merits and the claim was accepted.

Amazingly, within a week,

the claimant telephoned us back again to process a claim.

So the claimant had previously said that his first phone

had been stolen from his workplace.

He then submitted a second claim, stating he'd left

the replacement handset on the bus while on the way into work.

Now, once is unlucky,

but to lose two phones in as many weeks raised suspicion.

Our fraud team felt it was worthwhile

investigating a little further.

With the claimant's run of bad luck not ringing true,

a claims investigator gave him a call

to talk through the details of his most recent claim.

It seemed like a plausible story,

but Andy's team had been doing their homework and it appeared

the handsets have more in common than just their make and model.

Upon further investigation of the second claim

and reviewing both the second claim and now the first claim,

it became very clear that both devices

had been sold to the same recycling shop.

This information was put to the claimant.

Our fraud agents had received the information from the recycling shop.

Not only the receipts of the transaction but, also, the identity

and the documentation that the claimant had provided to that shop.

The claimant hadn't just sold on his phones,

he'd inadvertently sold himself out

by providing the recycling shop with his genuine personal details.

Armed with this knowledge, it was time to take the challenge to him.

During the call, the claims handler provides lots of opportunity

for the claimant to be honest.

He actually declines to take that opportunity.

While the claimant is given the chance to press cancel on his lie,

he refuses to tell the truth.

But it isn't long before he pushes redial,

managing to get through to a claims handler

who's unfamiliar with the case.

The claimant, unprompted,

then telephones back and asked to speak to our claims handler.

And it would be a call the claims handler would never forget.

OK. Let's hear that one more time.

The claimant had attempted a successful claim, initially,

and then, effectively, tried it on again.

As the claimant talks through details of his admission,

the full extent of the fraud becomes clear.

After selling his first phone to a recycling shop,

the claimant has then sold the replacement handset

to the same store

and attempted to make separate insurance claims

for both devices.

He then has a discussion with our claims handler

to ask about what would be the consequences of his behaviour.

This claimant, actually, is noticeably concerned

about the potential consequence of his fraudulent behaviour.

Er, maybe not the next best time to be asking for an upgrade.

Due to the customer's honesty, it resulted in us

not needing to do any more investigation in this case

and the claimant withdrew their claim.

On this occasion, the claimant had a lucky escape.

It could easily have been a different story,

as the insurer could have blacklisted, or prosecuted him,

for attempted fraud.

Now, how do you do your grocery shopping?

I know Sunday evenings wouldn't be the same for my wife and I

without a cup of tea and a bit of an online shop.

I am a hopeless romantic.

Well, one in four of us now do our main food shop online.

And, to meet demand, supermarkets have introduced

thousands of new commercial delivery vehicles to UK roads.

While this service has been eaten up by customers,

it also provided a tasty target for insurance cheats,

who caused deliberate crashes.

A practice known as "crash for cash".

You might be wondering

why fraudsters would target delivery vehicles

It's a subject Tom Gardiner is well versed in.

In the past, commercial vehicles have been deliberately targeted

by fraudsters because they know that they will be insured

and that they are likely to get a pay-out.

With delivery drivers clocking up so many miles every day,

the risk of incident is high.

Just like the one involving a car and an Iceland delivery van

in Luton, in 2014.

The initial claim that was reported by Mr Hussein

was for damage to his vehicle and for whiplash injuries,

following what appeared to be, on the face of it,

a straightforward rear-end shunt at a junction.

It looked like an everyday claim.

A whiplash injury may be worth £1,500-£3,000.

It may have appeared to have been a run of the mill accident

but Mr Hussein didn't waste any time

in getting in touch with Iceland store manager Ian Bisby.

The driver of the vehicle called me and told me

that my driver had driven into him.

He said, my driver hadn't stopped at a T-junction,

damaged his car and he had a witness.

And that he wanted our insurance details to take the matter further.

But it wasn't long before Ian was to hear a different story.

Within moments, my driver called me

and said a customer reversed into him.

On the face of it, I thought,

the customer's probably more plausible.

He was stationary at a T-junction. My driver approached him.

My driver hit him. That's the way I probably would have viewed it.

The driver in question was Ashley Dissan.

And he wasn't about to let his side of the story be discounted.

I saw his reversing lights come on.

And I thought it was a little bit strange.

You know, seeing as though we were at a set of lights.

The only way forward is forwards.

And then he'd come back so far that the impact had happened,

he rolled forward, I thought, OK, maybe he just got stuck in gear.

And then I saw the reversing lights come on again.

When he started coming back, that's where it, kind of,

hit me that he's just not stopping.

I was just lost for words. I got out of the van

and I, obviously, asked him "What were you doing?"

He said, "I tried to get it into gear and it got stuck into reverse."

"I do apologise." I was, like, "OK. That's fair enough."

He took responsibility.

After that, we just followed on with exchanging insurance details.

He may have been apologetic at the scene of the accident,

but that didn't last long.

It was Ashley's word against Mr Hussein's.

However, Ashley did have an all-seeing ally

who would reveal the truth.

What was unusual about this particular case was,

over and above our driver's evidence,

there was dash-cam evidence from our driver's van.

What the dash-cam footage revealed was that this wasn't

a straightforward rear-end shunt, at all.

Dash-cams have been commonplace in commercial vehicles for years.

And what this one revealed was that Mr Hussein

was telling porky pies bigger than any Ashley's van was carrying.

So, let's see what actually happened.

It's a row of traffic. Everyone's got their brake lights on.

Looks like they're waiting to go on to the main road in Luton

Oh! The car in front of my driver reversed back into him.

For no particular reason.

The car hit Ashley's van.

Mr Hussein may have lied about how the accident happened

but, maybe, the act itself was genuine driver error.

He's just put a brake light on

and he's reversing again. Into my van.

It's the second time.

It seems that Mr Hussein was running a buy-one, get-one-free special

on shunts that day.

It was conclusive evidence

that Ashley's version of events checked out.

Well, it makes me angry because the gentleman told me quite clearly

my driver drove into him.

It's fraud. It's disgraceful, really.

The camera never lies.

And with Mr Hussein's deception discovered,

he was in for a nasty shock.

Mr Hussein was trying to submit a fraudulent claim for damage

to his vehicle and for a whiplash compensation.

In this case, the evidence was so overwhelming that,

not content with just repudiating the claim, we then presented

the case to the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department to prosecute.

The IFED team were successful in bringing the case against

this fraudster and justice was delivered.

At court, Mr Hussein pleaded guilty to fraud

and he received 100 hours community service,

over and above not receiving a penny pay-out himself.

Mr Hussein actually had to repay his own insurers for the damage

that he had caused to his own vehicle, as well.

Mr Hussein's attempt at fraud could have had severe consequences

for Ashley and his family.

We treat safety of our customers very importantly.

The driver in question could have gone down the disciplinary route

and, possibly, lost his job, if we felt he was lying to us

in an investigation or causing an avoidable accident.

He's a driver by trade and his future employer might say,

"Why did you leave your last job?" "I was sacked for crashing a van."

The dash-cam may have saved Ashley's bacon

but he had already suffered needless stress.

I was always questioning whether I'm going to get that dreaded line

of, "I'm sorry, unfortunately, you've lost your job."

But, luckily for me, with the equipment of the dash-cams,

I'm here today and, obviously, going to be here tomorrow.

Nobody likes paying more than we have to for everyday services,

but this is exactly what's happening with insurance fraud.

Scammers and conmen are swindling their way to pay-outs

that they don't deserve.

The knock-on effect is that the extra costs result in ever

increasing premiums.

We're getting hit in the pocket and it's not just organised

criminal gangs to blame.

Exaggerated household claims also take their toll.

But instead of getting away with it,

more and more of these fraudsters are being Claimed And Shamed.