Photo: thestar.com
The operation has been led by members of the Yandell family, who deliberately staged 28 fake crashes involving 57 cars to collect fraudulently no less than $1.1 million (750,000 pounds).
Five of the 81 people convicted will spend the next 22 years in jail for having made false insurance claims between 2009 and 2011. Another 71 pleaded guilty and have been convicted to sentences ranging from five months suspended to three years in prison.
Cardiff Crown Court reveals that the 57 cars that were involved in this scam mostly belonged to Yandell family’s friends and relatives, and most of the cars have been repaired at the same garage.
The accused were charged after a two-year undercover operation named Dino. Eventually, they were caught because of CCTV cameras that recorded them deliberately smashing one of the cars in question into a forklift truck to make it look like it had been in an accident.
Richie Williams, the officer who led the investigation, hopes this decision will discourage other people from doing the same thing. Williams also revealed the difficulty of this investigation saying that it was a "mentally taxing" process.
According to the Daily Mail, everything started from the execution of some search warrants, and it took a while for anyone to figure out what the Yandell family was actually doing. It was not an easy case, as every person involved had to be arrested and interrogated. Also, the officers in charge had to go to each and every one of the insurance companies, which were scattered all over the country, to gather evidence.
Apparently, insurance frauds are very common in the UK, as another similar case happened in August 2015. Then, a 30-year-old mother hit the brakes of her car while traveling on the motorway with no reason or justification. Initially, there were no witnesses to sustain that the woman did it on purpose, but the incident had been recorded by a dashboard camera of a car, which eventually got her convicted.
Cardiff Crown Court reveals that the 57 cars that were involved in this scam mostly belonged to Yandell family’s friends and relatives, and most of the cars have been repaired at the same garage.
The accused were charged after a two-year undercover operation named Dino. Eventually, they were caught because of CCTV cameras that recorded them deliberately smashing one of the cars in question into a forklift truck to make it look like it had been in an accident.
Richie Williams, the officer who led the investigation, hopes this decision will discourage other people from doing the same thing. Williams also revealed the difficulty of this investigation saying that it was a "mentally taxing" process.
According to the Daily Mail, everything started from the execution of some search warrants, and it took a while for anyone to figure out what the Yandell family was actually doing. It was not an easy case, as every person involved had to be arrested and interrogated. Also, the officers in charge had to go to each and every one of the insurance companies, which were scattered all over the country, to gather evidence.
Apparently, insurance frauds are very common in the UK, as another similar case happened in August 2015. Then, a 30-year-old mother hit the brakes of her car while traveling on the motorway with no reason or justification. Initially, there were no witnesses to sustain that the woman did it on purpose, but the incident had been recorded by a dashboard camera of a car, which eventually got her convicted.
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