Keighley pair jailed for creating insurance fraud

Two fraudsters who created insurance policies for people who did not exist and then submitted 300 false personal injury referrals worth £167,000 for ‘made up’ road accidents have both been jailed for four and half years.

Former next door neighbours Israr Hussain and Shazad Shad were sentenced (12th August 2015) at Bradford Crown Court after earlier pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Their co-conspirators Ansar Mahmood and Muhammad Taj received suspended prison sentences and community service after pleading guilty to laundering money through their personal bank accounts.

These convictions followed a detailed investigation by the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department.

Between 2011 and 2014 Hussain and Shad, both from Keighley, set up hundreds of false car insurance policies using stolen identity documents and registered them to vehicles which the ‘policyholder’ had no insurable interest.

Stolen credit card details – many of which were taken from elderly and vulnerable women - were used to pay the premiums and false bank account details were provided to cover the direct debits.

The fraudsters then proceeded to submit details of false road traffic collisions to insurance companies, enabling them to making claims against the policies they had created.

These claims were sold on to solicitors firms with the gang, posing as claims management companies, receiving personal injury referral fees.

In total seven bank accounts were used to launder the £167,000 worth of referral fees, which were held in the names of different members of the gang.

Some of the money was transferred directly into a separate account and was used to pay Israr Hussain’s mortgage.

The fraud started to unravel when Quinn Insurance and the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) made referrals to IFED in 2013, which subsequently launched a criminal investigation. The IFB is an organisation which acts as a central data hub for the insurance industry to detect and disrupt organised motor fraud and works in partnership with police forces across the UK, including IFED.

Hussain and Shad were arrested in April 2013 during an IFED ‘Day of Action’ involving 50 officers from the City of London and West Yorkshire Police. Mahmood and Taj were arrested later, in May and July 2013.

IFED are now looking to launch confiscation proceedings against the gang and are appealing for anyone who knows anything about assets held by the four men to call them on 0207 164 8207.

Detective Constable Alex Cooley, who led the investigation for the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, said:

“The gang built a sophisticated web of deceit involving identity crime, credit card fraud and insurance fraud, believing mistakenly their dishonesty was going unnoticed.

“However IFED has the resources and capability to untangle the most complex criminal arrangements in our pursuit of those who seek to defraud. As a result of this expertise Israr Hussain and Shazad Shad are now facing jail-time and a life blighted by a criminal record.”

Ben Fletcher, Director of the IFB, said: “Fake accidents like those carried out by these fraudsters form part of the ‘crash for cash’ insurance fraud phenomenon which we estimate costs the honest policyholder almost £400 million every year. This operation highlights to insurance fraudsters that the risk of being caught and prosecuted is high as the IFB and the insurance industry work closely with the police to detect and disrupt insurance fraud scams, however sophisticated they may be.”

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