Fraudster sentenced for trying to con LV= out of £60,000

A 37-year-old man who made a fraudulent claim for £34,000 worth of items on his home insurance has been given a suspended jail sentence.

Kaustubh Ghosh from Essex, pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and possession of articles for use in fraud.

He was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment and six months imprisonment respectively with both sentences suspended for two years to run concurrently.

Ghosh was also ordered to complete 160 hours of unpaid work and to pay £1,000 in costs.

He was arrested in November 2014 and charged, following an investigation by LV= and the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).

On 12 May 2014, Ghosh contacted his home insurer, LV=, to inform them that his home had been burgled whilst he had been away on a holiday in Ibiza.

On the claim, Ghosh stated that he had lost items totalling £60,000 including camera and sports equipment, jewellery, clothing, DVDs and electrical equipment.

Suspicious that the claim might be fraudulent, LV= fraud investigators looked into the case and noticed that Ghosh had made a similar claim with another insurer for household contents that were stolen the previous year, where he had received a pay out of £34,000.

Ghosh provided LV= with various invoices for items he claimed were stolen in the burglary, but when they compared the invoices to those from the previous claim, many of the invoices were the same – with the duplicates totalling £34,000 worth of items.

When challenged, Ghosh decided to withdraw the claim.

But the case was passed to detectives from IFED who opened a criminal investigation into Ghosh.

Following further investigation officers also discovered that eight of the 11 invoices Ghosh submitted had been fraudulently made up by him.

IFED police staff investigator Tony Freeman said: “Ghosh went to significant lengths to try and defraud his insurer into paying out for goods and items he had already claimed for in a previous burglary, and had simply forged invoices to increase his claim.”

LV= head of claims crime prevention Clare Lunn added: “This is a great result and sends a strong message to all fraudsters that fraud is a crime with serious consequences.”