In San Diego, 11 persons were charged and accused of illegally staging automobile crashes. They were part of a ring which used to file fraudulent claims with the insurance companies. The arrest was a result of sustained investigations carried out by detectives from California Department of Insurance (CDI). The CID Commissioner Steve Poizner said the people involved in such car collisions were criminals who were risking other innocent lives while seeking money for themselves.
He further said, the fraud detectives worked diligently to break this crime ring. Insurance companies suffered a damage of about $200,000 due to this crime ring. The defendants face 83 charges of felony, and one of them is a juvenile. The person accused to be leader of the ring faces charges on 28 counts and may be sentenced up to 11 years in prison.
In all the collision staged by the ring, the automobile which caused the accident was called the “hammer”. This vehicle was abandoned at the scene of accident before police arrived. The follow up investigations that took place after every accident, suggested the pattern that “hammer” vehicles were either reported stolen or missing by their owners.
Passengers in the other vehicle reported soft tissue injury and were treated at local hospitals. They used to file personal injury claims from the insurance company later. When the claims were settled, checks were sent directly to injured passengers. In one such staged crash, the backpack of one injured passenger was found in the “hammer” vehicle. As the investigations progressed, numerous connections between “hammer” vehicle owners and injured passengers were established.
So far seven insurance companies have been forced to pay more than $200,000 in automobile insurance claim to the involved suspects.
