- 2 days ago
Rogue Claimers - Season 2 Episode 18
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Short filmTranscript
00:06insurance fraud has reached epidemic levels in the UK it's costing us more
00:10than 1.3 billion pounds every year that's almost 3.6 million pounds every
00:16day deliberate crashes bogus personal injuries even phantom pets the fraudsters
00:25are risking more and more to make a quick killing and every year it's adding
00:29around 50 pounds to your insurance bill but insurers are fighting back exposing
00:34just under 15 fake claims every hour armed with the latest fraud busting
00:39technology subject out the vehicle including covert surveillance systems
00:44sophisticated data analysis techniques and specially trained fraud investigators
00:49oh they're catching these chances red-handed instead of getting away with
00:56it even more of these fraudsters are getting caught out this is road claim
01:08today the world's unluckiest computer user but is it really bad luck
01:14is this the third time that you've lost the laptop not not the third time it's
01:18thought so how do you think this keeps happening to the same case or not
01:25a con man a car and a carpet attempts to claim for a rear-end shunt a rumble when a
01:31driver is
01:31caught faking a crash on cctv this damage is clearly being caused when watching this footage by
01:38crashing into this concrete ballard
01:42and a fake jury claim is highlighted as the claimant was trying too hard
01:48the customer had receipts for everything this is most unusual
01:59roundabouts you slow down check you're clear to move away then carry on with your journey
02:04sounds simple but they are the scene of many accidents some legitimate others less so
02:11lv insurance is used to dealing with claims but it admits the following audacious attempt that
02:16involved a con man a car a carpet and the bollard defied belief even though it was captured on camera
02:24our policyholder contacted us to make us aware that she pulled onto a roundabout and collided with
02:28the rear of the third-party vehicle she alleged that this vehicle pulled onto the roundabout
02:32stopped abruptly causing the collision the policyholder who was driving a Nissan seemed
02:38absolutely clear about what had happened when we spoke to our policyholder she said there was
02:43nothing in front of the claimants car there was no reason for him to stop so abruptly but luckily
02:48this wasn't a high-speed crash this was a very minor accident traveling at low speed our policyholder
02:53remained in first gear throughout the damage reported by our policyholder was a small dent to
02:57the rear of the third-party car and slight damage to the front of hers the woman driving the
03:02nissan behind the man in a vw was convinced this was a little bump but the motorist she hit was
03:09telling
03:09a different story approximately two weeks after the accident we received a telephone call from the
03:14third party alleging his vehicle was unroadworthy during this telephone call he said his vehicle been
03:19that badly damaged it was no longer drivable and was a total loss at three thousand two hundred pounds
03:25we went on to receive a personal injury claim for him and anticipated receiving a claim for storage
03:30recovery and credit hire that's quite a list for a first gear prank and there were more inconsistencies
03:37as well as the personal injury claim for the third party driver we also received two more personal
03:42injury claims one for a male passenger one for a female passenger this contradicted the version of
03:48events that we got from our policyholder that there were simply two male occupants that look in the
03:52car at the time of the accident very curious unsurprisingly suspicions were raised based on the
03:58concerns raised by our policyholder we felt this was an induced collision and therefore carried
04:03out a detailed investigation within our fraud investigation unit we carried out a detailed
04:07interview with our policyholder to fully understand the sequence of events on the day we also carried
04:12out a forensic engineer's inspection of both vehicles this carries out detailed measurements of both cars
04:18looking at the damage and also reporting on damage consistency did one vehicle hit the other causing
04:24that damage the examination was well worth it the forensic engineer was very conclusive in these
04:30investigations he confirmed that damage could not have been caused to the VW by the Nissan he also
04:36goes on to say that had those two vehicles been in contact to cause the damage to the VW the
04:42number plate
04:42on the front end on the Nissan would have been totally annihilated looking at the pictures you can see this
04:48is not the case the damage to the front of our policyholders car was a very minimum the front
04:52light had dropped down slightly but otherwise the vehicle appears relatively intact when we looked at
04:58the third-party car it was a different story the rear light cluster was smashed the bumper had dropped down
05:03over the rear wing and when we opened the boot there's a large cross member across the back of
05:07the car which was split in two even though this was made out of steel this shows the damage to
05:13the rear of
05:14a third-party car was some serious impact not consistent with a very minor damage on the front
05:19of our policyholders car to smash this steel cross member would have taken some severe force which
05:24would have caused far more damage to the front of our car when we compare that with the pictures of
05:29our policyholders car showing very minor damage to the front it is clear this damage could not have
05:34been caused by our policyholders vehicle following on from receiving the engineer's report with the
05:39pictures of the third parties car we took the opportunity to send these to our policyholders
05:43so she could look at them and give her opinion whether or not this is a consistent with what
05:47she saw at the scene of the accident on this occasion she confirmed the damage was totally
05:52different from what she saw at the scene having read the forensic engineers report and seen the
05:57stark contrast in damage in the images this furthered my concerns that this was not a genuine claim that
06:02we were dealing with LV already had a strong case for turning down the claims made by the VW
06:08driver and his male and fictitious female passengers but the company was about to receive footage that
06:15was pure dynamite to our surprise we then got contacted to make us aware that CCTV footage had
06:22been recorded showing the third-party car being deliberately driven into a concrete block causing
06:27further damage why on earth was the VW which should have been safely in secure storage being driven into a
06:35block block here you can see the vehicle in front of the concrete ballard you can see him getting the
06:45roll of carpet out of the boot and placing it over the concrete ballard the driver returns to the driver's
06:55seat drives the car forward and then reverse the speed crashing into the concrete ballard it gets out of the
07:04car
07:06goes around to the rear and inspects any damage that is caused apparently unhappy with the level of
07:13damage that's now been caused to the car he gets back in drives it forward and again crashes into the
07:20concrete ballard to cause further damage
07:29here we can now see him inspecting the car opening the boot and looking inside to see whether or not
07:35the
07:35boot floor has been damaged sufficiently here we see the great skills of the security guard operating the
07:44cameras clearly concerned about what he's witnessing he zooms the camera in on the registration number so we can
07:51clearly identify that this is our vehicle not only is this vehicle being deliberately damaged by this
07:56driver let's not forget this vehicle should be in storage that we're being charged for
08:02he clearly had no idea his attempts were caught on camera but he inadvertently provided great footage
08:08that offered a proper explanation having watched the footage this is clear why the engineer was able
08:14to give his decision that the damage was inconsistent this damage has clearly been caused
08:19when watching this footage by crashing into this concrete ballard
08:28whilst we had our suspicions that this was an induced accident based on our policy
08:31orders version of events from the start
08:33having seen this footage now we're able to prove that it's part of an organized fraud
08:39the person wrecking the vw may have brought the correct kit to cover his tracks but didn't survey the
08:45surroundings for prying eyes
08:47whilst this person looks like he's quite experienced by placing a piece of carpet
08:51over the concrete ballard so as not to get brick dust into the damaged parts of the car
08:57he is somewhat naive carrying out this activity in broad daylight under the view of cctv
09:03oh how the vw driver must have regretted not looking over his shoulder from our policyholders
09:09initial version of events right up until receipts of the forensic engineers report confirming the damage
09:15was inconsistent everything proved to this being a fraudulent claim we therefore declined it in full
09:22from phantom passengers to deliberate damage this audacious attempt to fraudulently cash in on a huge scale
09:48of course he went to the natural place uh that you will go to to seek uh someone to stand
09:54in for you and that was the pub
10:09the last decade has seen a massive increase in people owning laptops
10:17whether it's for work or for pleasure there are models to suit everybody's needs and budgets
10:24but if you're going for a pricey one then an insurance policy to protect it from damage theft
10:29or loss is a shrewd move
10:34that's exactly what our next claimant did so when he lost his top of the range laptop whilst on a
10:40city
10:40break he called on sega a charles taylor company to get the ball rolling with a claim on his travel
10:46insurance policy we received the claim for the policyholder who claimed for a recently purchased
10:53laptop that was subsequently lost during a trip in the uk when the policyholder registered the claim
10:58we didn't originally have any concerns but one thing did cause sega to be slightly worried
11:06during the initial call the policyholder was very vague about how the laptop had gone missing
11:11and then how can i help uh unfortunately my laptop has been displaced which which country were you
11:22uh traveling to at the time uh within the uk and where did you start your trip i started my
11:29trip on 26
11:30of uh december and uh i came back and take the land what date was it that uh you noticed
11:36you no
11:37longer had your laptop uh so on uh by 30 at night i noticed uh uh my laptop was missing
11:45and can you
11:47remember the uh make and model of the laptop that you've lost um second please yeah it's the apple
11:54mac pro the laptop itself was worth roughly two thousand pounds due to the value of the laptop we would
12:01have expected the customer to make further inquiries with anyone where it could have been lost
12:07which was perfectly reasonable after coming home i realized um uh what was missing okay so um do you
12:16do you think you lost it at the hotel then but i'm not sure to be flying because i rang
12:20the hotel
12:20when did you speak to the hotel about the hotel i thought you'd go to the hotel like the people
12:28have you had any correspondence from the hotel to say that they they don't have the item
12:33yes the claim form i'm about to send send you will ask for um looking invoices and um a loss
12:43report
12:43from the hotel we would also need proof of purchase so any receipts uh for for the laptop uh if
12:50you
12:50could put that into the claim as well please do you have an email from the hotel uh i don't
12:56have any
12:56email i just uh spoke with them on the phone but if you have an email um we could uh
13:03use that in in
13:04the meantime what i'll do is i'll get a claim form out to you do you have any questions at
13:08this point
13:10uh nothing at the moment okay and that was the problem the claimant was being a bit too frank
13:18as the policy holder was very vague about how the laptop had gone missing and was also quite
13:22reluctant to send us evidence that he had reported the loss to the hotel the claim was referred over
13:28to our special investigations unit i just wanted to go back to the trip please and can you just um
13:33describe to me as much detail as you can everything that's happened before the loss what is the point
13:38when you discovered it and everything that happened afterwards please uh so the thing is uh like
13:44after coming from holiday and to home i realized that my laptop was missing so i rang the hotel
13:52as well as well so they said that they couldn't find anything in the room we stayed uh so that's
13:57what happened and after that uh made a claim and uh explained all the details in the claim form
14:05in terms of the laptop when was the last time that you remember having that
14:11i remember now it's all the dates i almost forgot almost all the dates to be frank it's almost one
14:18and a
14:18half month so uh the last time when i was in the hotel i don't remember that i was having
14:24the laptop
14:25okay so so you don't remember when you last had it yeah because uh uh it's almost uh uh one
14:32and a
14:32month back i think he sent it so i don't even remember when i made the claim or such fact
14:38right okay but was there a point in the trip where you used the laptop or uh i used the
14:43laptop in the
14:43hotel room okay and did you ever take the laptop part of the hotel room i'm not sure exactly to
14:49be
14:49frank the purpose of the call was to gather more details but the claimant was so vague it's quite
14:57unusual that the policyholder wasn't able to recall when he last saw the laptop the investigator also
15:02wanted to find out what efforts the claimant had gone to after losing it have you reported this incident
15:09to the police to be frank no okay no i was just curious as to why you wouldn't have reported
15:16to
15:17the police if given the value of the laptop i understand that you've made it to the hotel
15:21but if you feel that this has been taken from your room or you're unclear as to what's happened with
15:26it i was just curious as to why you wouldn't have registered it with the police in order to
15:29sort of maximize your uh potential chances of getting the laptop back i had to be frank the thing is
15:36i wasn't uh aware of reporting to the police or something else your policy states that you need
15:41to report losses or thefts to the police uh as soon as you can and if you are unable to
15:46report it to
15:47the police then you should report it to another relevant authority the thing is uh i wasn't aware
15:51to be frank right okay can i just ask a question if you didn't have this insurance policy what would
15:58you have done sorry if you didn't have this insurance policy what would you have done
16:06what would i have done if i don't get insurance policy um to be frank i don't know okay do
16:14you
16:14think you would have notified the police if you didn't have the insurance policy um it depends on
16:19the situation four years back or something i lost the laptop and after that i started making insurance
16:25the fact the claimant had lost the laptop in the past was not news to the investigator
16:44we have access to insurance databases where we can actually see the customer had made previous similar
16:49claims on other forms of insurance have you ever made any travel insurance claims at all in the
16:54past regardless of the outcome um uh i'm not exactly sure i uh i mean how i think sorry i
17:07i how done i
17:08think yeah okay can you remember what they're for uh for the laptop i think okay how long ago was
17:19that
17:19what do you mean by life well how long ago was it that you made a travel insurance claim from
17:24a laptop
17:25two years back or i don't remember exactly two years back i think so two years ago yeah i think
17:32yeah
17:33okay so can i just clarify is this the third time that you've lost the laptop
17:39uh yeah i think yeah so it's the third time not not not the third time it's the fourth time
17:45i think
17:45yeah it's the fourth time yeah not only did the claimant have a serious memory problem
17:52his ability to lose laptops was fast becoming an olympic sport
17:57although losses do occur this was the policyholders fourth claim for a laptop within a very short space of
18:02time we would consider this beyond the scope of human error how do you think this keeps happening
18:07what do you mean by that well obviously when you lose something once obviously it's a great
18:13discretion there's obviously an awful inconvenience but sort of to happen three four times to keep
18:18losing items like this how does that keep happening do you think yeah because it all depends upon the
18:24situations right okay but one of the stipulations of your insurance is to act as if you're uninsured
18:31so do you think you're acting like you don't have an insurance policy
18:35well it's all depends on what the thing is the situations are making me to project things
18:40uh that's all you think based on the similarities between the policyholder's previous claims and his
18:46current claim we made further inquiries with the retailer that sold him the laptop that he's
18:51claiming has gone missing in this incident but what was really curious was that the retailer explained
18:57the laptop had been returned to the store three weeks before he went on holiday so how could he
19:03have lost it the claimant had already demonstrated he had less memory than his computer but to forget
19:10he'd returned the same laptop he was claiming he then lost was beyond the realms of possibility to be frank
19:18on top of all of our concerns that we had with the way the policyholder was behaving throughout the
19:23claims process we now had a key bit of evidence to show that the laptop didn't ever go missing
19:27because it was returned before the trip after disclosing our evidence to the policyholder we wrote
19:34to him formally declining his claim on the grounds of fraud we didn't hear anything back from him after
19:38that the claimant may have thought that was the end of the matter given the evidence that we obtained
19:44the claim was referred to the police they made multiple attempts to contact him but unfortunately
19:50were unsuccessful as such an arrest warrant was issued in the policyholder's name he was about to
19:56experience one of the pitfalls of making a fraudulent insurance claim once the police were able to track
20:03down the policyholder and arrest him he made a full admission of the offense he had committed as the
20:08policyholder admitted the offense to the police the police decided the best course of action would be to
20:13issue him with a police caution which would not be something that could easily be deleted
20:19the police caution that the policyholder received could now impact his ability to gain insurance
20:26employment or credit in the future
20:34still to come a gang of wine bar fraudsters nothing really ever surprises you this one did given the
20:42complexities and scale of it in an audacious million pound scam what started as a one claim investigation
20:51turned into being the biggest commercial property fraud conspiracy that we've seen
21:09valuable pieces of jewelry are one of those luxuries that should definitely be covered with an insurance
21:15policy in the event of making a claim receipts and valuations are a huge help
21:22but the next case demonstrates how one woman's overzealous record keeping was her downfall
21:28lmg jewelry works with insurers who pass on cases that need extra scrutiny and this one needed a thorough
21:36examination she's had a burglary where our premises have been forcibly entered while she's been away she's
21:44come home and she's found a bedroom that's been ransacked and all of her jewelry taken the only thing
21:50she's got left are the four items that she's wearing on her wrist
21:55that must have been devastating as was the scale of the robbery
21:59there was a significant amount of jewelry almost 80 items were taken there was some specifically
22:05some asian jewelry which had been wedding dowry jewelry which was largely 22 karat gold
22:11and then there was a significant amount of western jewelry which had been purchased from shopping channels
22:18the value of the jewelry on a retail basis would have been the order of 48 000 pounds
22:24not an insignificant amount lmg sent in the loss adjusters their job is to investigate and establish
22:33the cause of the loss and determine if it is covered by the insurance policy
22:37when they visited the woman's house to assess the situation they had some doubts about whether
22:43the burglary she had reported had actually happened they could find no evidence that either
22:50the rear or the front door of the property had been forced there was a suggestion of the bedroom
22:54window being forced but when the loss adjusters looked at it they felt that that forced entry had
22:59been staged also the loss adjusters were flabbergasted by how easily the traumatized claimant was able to
23:07put her hands on the correspondence relating to the jury they would typically have a a list a
23:14handwritten list representing the claimant's best guesstimate of what had been taken on this occasion
23:22they were provided with two valuations and a box full of receipts the customer had receipts for everything
23:32this is most unusual most people it will take them time to work out exactly what they've lost and it
23:39will take them even more time to work out what evidence they've got to submit to support the claim
23:45things were already fishy and the paperwork contained even more to arouse suspicion it seemed the jewelry
23:52lover enjoyed buying gems and trinkets from television shopping channels one of the documents from a
23:57shopping channel had had returned stamped on the receipt which gave the impression that the policyholder
24:04was no longer in possession of the item at the time this burglary happened this can be a common pitfall
24:10for cheats using mail order there's always a concern with internet purchases that as part of the
24:16process the recipients of that piece of jewelry always has the option to return it so they may have
24:22evidence of a transaction but have they returned the piece of jewelry so had our jewelry fan done this
24:29and was this her way of operating there was potential that some of the other items
24:34had also been returned to the jewelers from which they've been purchased all guesswork that needed
24:41to be verified when we received the claim we had a list from the loss adjusters of 80 items of
24:47jewelry
24:48we asked the customer to provide us with their own list of the jewelry and we subsequently received
24:53one but surprisingly this only contains 72 items some clarity was needed so lmg requested that the claimant
25:02itemized the receipts to show the specific items they related to finally lmg would have a definitive
25:09list to work from wouldn't it 31 items were missing from this list could you forget 31 items of jewelry
25:16out of a claim of 79 items i very much doubt it you might forget one or two items but
25:21not 31 items
25:22and not 31 items which were listed on receipts thrust into the hands of the adjusters on the first day
25:30things weren't adding up and attention now fell on the items which the burglars missed the one she
25:36was wearing the policyholder was maintaining that all she was left with was costume jewelry
25:41but the schedule of claim that she submitted had a number of 22 karat gold bangles
25:46so it could be that those bangles on the valuation that she was claiming for
25:50were on her wrist on the day she met the adjuster
25:55in addition to the receipts we've received there were two valuations from an asian jeweler
26:02who trades from birmingham what was slightly unusual is that several of the items were appearing
26:09where we had receipts from the shopping channel what was of concern is that the value on the valuation
26:15was substantially higher than the amount the customer had paid for the item on a valuation
26:23from 2015 there's a necklace listed as being worth three and a half thousand pounds when we cross
26:31reference this to the receipts we'd had from the shopping channel we found the exact same necklace
26:37similar description and the lady had paid less than 400 pounds for it even allowing for inflation that is way
26:44way way too high yes that's inflation of nearly a thousand percent mistakes could happen but lmg soon
26:52saw a pattern emerging there was a ring that she'd paid 150 pounds for that had been valued at 1950
26:59pounds there was an item that she'd paid less than 20 pounds for that had been valued at 350 pounds
27:06the first step in protecting your jewelry is to have it regularly valued and our claimant had been
27:11diligent in that respect but she'd been strangely lax in following up with the next step when we
27:18looked at the policy the policy wasn't actually taken out until some years later that was very unusual
27:25if somebody's gone to the trouble of having a valuation and know that they've got 30 000 pounds
27:30worth of jewelry why wouldn't they have taken a policy out there and then it gave us more of an
27:36impression this whole thing had been staged perhaps it was just fortunate she took out the policy in
27:43the nick of time jeremy is skeptical bearing in mind they had never had insurance previously and they
27:50clearly had property of a certain value and worth it's unusual that somebody hadn't taken out an insurance
27:57before this the claim was rejected this bling sting was just too ambitious to succeed
28:05i think on this occasion the claimant had been very greedy rather than present a claim based on what
28:11she'd paid for the items and her asian jewelry together that would have had a value of somewhere
28:16in the region of 15 to 20 000 pounds she'd really gone for it she'd engineered a situation where the
28:22valuation she presented was significantly inflated above and beyond what she paid for them so she
28:30stood to gain a substantial sum of money out of this and i think that's what let her down
28:35the high value was the first red flag but this case had so many red flags it looked like a
28:41russian
28:41military parade her tactics followed a strategy well known to these insurers recent policy inception very
28:49large loss too well documented now that might seem strange but it is too well documented so to have
28:56receipts for practically everything you've lost is exceptional we do see evidence of over inflation on
29:05valuations but on this occasion that that was massive and that's not typically what we see
29:19no one wants to deal with a leak or a burst pipe flooding their property
29:24yet water damage remains one of the most common claims insurers face
29:29at home it's distressing but if it happens at a business premises it can be devastating every day the
29:37door stays shut is a day without income so when disaster strikes swift repairs are critical to
29:44getting the business back on track that was exactly the situation facing the owners of a wine bar in
29:50lincolnshire when catastrophe hit we're a customer who submitted a claim for a burst pipe which has caused
29:57considerable damage to the premises and stopped them from trading the wine bar appeared to have only been
30:05open for two years so for a fledgling business this was a bit of a blow a claim of this
30:11nature relies on
30:12speed it's important particularly with a business that we have the claim validated as quickly as
30:18possible repairs to commence to allow the business to get back on its feet as soon as we can their
30:24insurers zurich wasted no time in sending someone out to get the ball rolling a claim that this needs
30:31a loss adjuster to go out and visit to establish exactly what the cause of the leak is and the
30:36extent of the damage and what needs to happen to restore the premises back to the way they were
30:42prior to the the bush pipe which could be a big job as the loss adjuster reported that the damage
30:49was
30:49quite substantial there was clearly a lot of repairs that were required to get the business back in
30:55operation and so we were faced with the repairs costs as well as the cost of the business interruption
31:02we estimated this claim to be certainly over fifty thousand pounds at that point
31:06it all looked like a genuine claim so zurich asked the customer to send in quotes for all the
31:11remedial work that needed doing there was documentation submitted um for repairs estimates for repairs
31:19drying the property out but there was a problem
31:22the documents just didn't look right in terms of the way that they were presented and when you've
31:28got something that doesn't quite look right then it's always important to follow your nose
31:32and therefore we carried out further checks
31:35by contacting the contractors listed in the document
31:39the people who have actually carried out the work are usually only too willing to
31:43tell us exactly what their involvement was in this case we actually made inquiries and found out
31:48that the documents were entirely fictitious finding out the documents were forged was a game changer
31:55it moves the claim from one of validation into investigation so it was then really important
32:00that we carried out further checks we made inquiries with the local council and found out that the
32:05they'd never granted a license to sell alcohol which should be pretty troublesome to a wine bar not
32:11been able to sell alcohol so that immediately obviously raised suspicions further
32:16a business that wasn't even open and zurich also discovered the lease documents were fake
32:23scott and his team started to dig around we wanted to find out how long they'd actually been in the
32:29premises for and whether they rented it whether they owned it etc and it turned out that they'd actually
32:35taken a short-term lease and that turned out to be in false names at this point our concerns
32:40are really significant because we've got false documentation identities had been manufactured
32:47we've got a wine bar that isn't licensed to trade so we're really not sure exactly what we're faced with
32:53here and but what we're definitely not faced with here is a genuine claim
33:00zurich then decided to get in touch with the wider insurance industry
33:04turns out that they had other policies for these individuals some of which were the same premises as
33:10we were insuring not only that there were other claims very similar to this with other insurers
33:17at this point we realized that we were onto something pretty big and the real missing link was the
33:22scale of it we decided to involve the police the police have far greater investigation powers than we
33:28have finding exactly who's involved their various identities the bank accounts that are connected to
33:34them how many insurance policies how many claims who can be connected to each of these policies and
33:41claims and really what evidence exists from other insurers in effect join the dots the investigation
33:46revealed a london-based criminal gang had cashed in on 15 fraudulent policies and had been paid a
33:52staggering one million pounds the gang had access to four bars and one restaurant and they took out
34:00short-term leases on these properties that were usually in a fairly poor state of repair
34:09the properties were proposed from an insurance point of view as being restaurants and
34:13and bars in operation so they were businesses that were working but in reality they weren't they were
34:20just shells of companies that they were using to manipulate and facilitate these claims they
34:25would take a policy out and they would submit a claim under that policy for an escape of water
34:31and every time the cause was a burst pipe they had a number of policies and they had several
34:37claims at each of these premises to make sure that they didn't overlap because they were dealt with
34:43by other insurers they would find out who the loss adjuster was that was coming out to visit these
34:48premises and if it was one that they'd seen before they would make a call into the insurance company
34:53to say that they were withdrawing the claim because it was a problem that the landlord would fix
34:59police searches of the properties also gave them vital evidence regarding the so-called burst pipes
35:06the way in which they created this leak was through a hose pipe and it was fairly basic
35:11but turn a hose pipe on in the ceiling void and cause significant damage so there was a hose pipe
35:19left at one of the premises and they managed to take fingerprints from that to show that it had actually
35:23been used by one of the accused detectives also looked into bank accounts and saw that the money was
35:30being laundered through other accounts in effect cleaning the money up that they were receiving from
35:35insurance companies these individuals were changing their identity sometimes by deep pool because the
35:41more identities they had the more opportunity they had to facilitate this fraud and they were intent on
35:47submitting as many claims as they possibly could given how lucrative it was for them the police now had
35:52the full picture the gang had targeted 14 insurers to net their million pound payout the police identified
35:59evidence to charge seven individuals with this fraud and ultimately went to court and there was a full
36:06trial the court after trial found that there was insufficient evidence to pursue against two of the
36:13accused but five of them were convicted and sentenced and they were sentenced to a total of 14 years in
36:20prison
36:30it was a real credit to the painstaking steps that the police went to to identify exactly what happened
36:37and having the evidence there to prove it that managed to bring them to justice
36:42three years on finally the wine bar racketeers were behind bars and it was zurich who had been
36:48instrumental in making sure it was last orders for these million pound fraudsters
36:54what started as a one claim investigation turned into being the biggest commercial property fraud
37:02conspiracy that we've seen when you investigate insurance fraud nothing really ever surprises you
37:08that's one dead
37:19insurers have seen an eclectic archive of people caught hurting themselves in order to rake in some money
37:25with a personal injury claim fingers are a favorite from workmen to chefs digits seem to be fair game
37:34of the blm dealt with a case where a legitimate wound to a finger escalated into a forensic search
37:40uncovering a web of lies and deceit
37:43the accident revolved around a torch a faulty torch the claimant who bought the claim alleged that
37:51he bought a torch an led light that was chargeable from a cigarette lighter fitment within a vehicle
38:00um the allegation was that he'd plugged it in to charge and at that time the torch exploded and shot
38:09out of the charging point hitting and damaging his thumb
38:16upon assessing the claim it became evident that the claimant uh was not only a manager of a pub
38:22um but he owned a catering business and also uh he was a part-time joiner as well so he
38:29fitted kitchens
38:30and did home improvements that type of activity the person putting in the claim sounds like a very busy
38:37man who was going to struggle without a fully functioning digit as a result of the injury to his thumb
38:43the claimant suggested that he was out of pocket for 13 000 pounds he had to be accepted that you
38:50know
38:50he'd injured his thumb and therefore the home improvement side of things the more manual
38:54um manual side to his work uh he wouldn't be able to complete and he suggested he wasn't able to
39:01complete that for around six weeks following the accident but blm was a little puzzled by how our
39:08multitasker then went about solving the problem in order that the work was completed um the person
39:15suggested that they had to go and seek someone else to do it for them um of course he went
39:22to the
39:22natural place uh that you would go to to seek uh someone to stand in for you and that was
39:27the pub
39:28he met somebody uh who agreed to do that work on his behalf albeit because it was short notice
39:35they were said to have charged him 13 000 pounds
39:42it's a bit of a cliche that you met a man down the pub and he would you know do
39:4813
39:48pounds and pounds worth of work for you um in fact it's not cliche i think it's unbelievable
39:53and actually we don't believe that ever happened given the skepticism the insurer took things a step
40:01further and appointed a forensic accountant to scrutinize the claimant's details
40:07so a key feature of what the forensic accountant would have been looking for there was the money
40:12transferred out of the accounts provided by the claimant into the person's account that
40:20is said to have done the work for him
40:24there was absolutely no evidence of 13 000 pounds being paid by the claimant into his associate's
40:32account furthermore we tried to establish who the associate was in order that we could question
40:38them directly um the letters that he provided the claimant provided to ourselves gave a number of
40:45different addresses for the associate that was said to have done the work it is possible to find out who
40:51owns a property and blm did so with interesting results we applied to the land registry for uh for
40:59details of the owners of the properties and they subsequently disclosed the records around that
41:03to our surprise the properties were actually owned by the person making the claim carpenter caterer a
41:11publican and now a property magnate when challenged around this aspect and particularly around the
41:19ownership of the properties the claimant indicated that he'd sold or transferred ownership of the
41:27properties to his son we would then question whether one this was true and two if this was the truth
41:37how urgent must it be to actually do work on behalf of your son and then pay 13 000 pounds
41:45for that
41:45privilege whereby you had originally told us that you would have been paid eight thousand pounds by your
41:54son to do that work it just didn't fit it all seems too suspicious and too coincidental
42:07i think looking at this case the claimant who had suffered a genuine genuine injury just didn't
42:14appreciate that we would really scrutinize a loss of earnings claim and investigate it to the full extent
42:19that we did i think he thought that he could tell us that he was doing work on four properties
42:25and he
42:26was going to get paid for that he didn't count on the fact that we would follow up that investigation
42:31and establish actually he owned the properties and he had no intention of working on them our man with
42:37many hats may have tripped himself up with his lies how would the legal system treat him the case proceeded
42:44to
42:44court um and the judge actually said that the claimant could keep the money that he'd been given for
42:50his personal injury because it was a valid injury he was very lucky with that element but his lies were
42:56his undoing the judge totally dismissed the loss of earnings claim um and the claimant was effectively
43:04found to be fundamentally dishonest that gave blm um the remit to pursue him uh for the fake claim that
43:15he'd presented to
43:15ourselves so we went down the the roads of uh issuing a taut of deceit against him which effect in
43:23effect is suing him
43:24uh for the loss that he'd bought um as a result of that we uh we sued him for 11
43:31000 pounds which
43:32he subsequently paid in full um so by bringing the fraudulent claim in the first place it cost him a
43:40lot of
43:40money in the end
44:10uh
44:10uh
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