Two fraudsters in £167,000 scam jailed for four and a half years

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 each been jailed for four and half years.

Former next door neighbours, Israr Hussain and Shazad Shad (pictured), were sentenced at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

They had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

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.

Between 2011 and 2014 Hussain and Shad, both from Keighley, set up hundreds of false car insurance policies using stolen identity documents.

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 submitted details of fake accidents to insurers and made claims against the policies they had created.

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

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.

The fraud was discovered after Quinn Insurance and the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) made referrals to IFED in 2013, which subsequently launched a criminal investigation.

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.

IFED is 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 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.”