Six people from Brent have been sentenced for their role in a ‘cash for crash’ gang which made more than £1million from fake insurance claims.
Rafal Parczewski, 41, Mikolaj Parczewski, 25, Daniel Z Zakrzewski, 31, all from Owen Way, Neasden, Maria Aftewicz, 27, of Clive Court in Fortunegate Road, Harlesden, Anna Olenczuk, 47, of Quainton Street, Neasden, and 48-year-old Barbara Aftewicz, of Villiers Road, Willesden, were part of the 19-strong gang which staged a catalogue of crashes between 2009 and 2014.
The gang would use a decoy car which would deliberately brake suddenly in traffic resulting in the car behind slamming into the back.
The driver and any passengers would make fake personal injury claims as a result of the crash.
The gang came to the attention of the police when one of their drivers Mohammed Zubair Jamil, 35, staged a crash which resulted in three innocent drivers slamming into each other.
An investigation by officers and the Insurance Fraud Bureau discovered Jamil was the company director for SAS Accident Management, and SAS Car Hire, based in Watford.
Both companies had been involved in claims for previous crashes.
Jamil’s records were seized resulting in a number of claims to the value of £1.1million being investigated and the gang’s actions were unravelled.
Last week saw the last four of the 19 people involved convicted and sentenced in court.
Three separate trials took place at Harrow Crown Court.
In the second trial in June, Rafal Parczewski and Daniel Z Zakrzewski were sentenced to 22 months in jail, Barbara Aftewicz and Mikolaj Parczewski received 16 months in prison, and Maria Aftewicz and Anna Olenczuk were each given a 16 months suspended jail sentence and must both carry out 150 hours community service.
Jamil of Gimaldi Avenue, Luton, was sentenced to five years in jail.
Detective Inspector David Hindmarsh, investigating officer, said: “This was an audacious, criminal act, carried out by unscrupulous people whose sole aim was to line their pockets at the expense of their victims.
“They did not care whatsoever that their reckless acts endangered the lives of innocent people.”
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