Six-strong gang staged more than 120 fake car accidents

A fraudster who masterminded a ‘cash for crash’ scam costing car insurers almost �2million has been jailed for five years.

Mohammed Samsul Haque, of Lydford Road, Queen’s Park, teamed up with five other men to stage more than 120 fake crashes between November 2005 and October 2008.

Southwark Crown Court heard the fraudulent claims resulted in insurers paying out �1.91m of which the gang kept �1.17m.

Haque set up Motor Alliance an accident claim management company based in Tottenham, north London, which handled the fake insurance claims.

His company also ‘charged’ for other services such as storage facilities and the hire of courtesy cars whilst the claim was being settled.

Motor Alliance purported to act for the third party ‘driver’ whose expensive vehicle has been hit by a cheaper car which would have been at fault therefore had accepted liability.

A claim would be made against cheaper car’s insurance company enabling the fraudsters to make as much cash from the claim as possible.

Acting on a tip-off from a suspicious insurance company, detectives discovered a pattern of irregularities in submitted claims.

A raid on the premises of Motor Alliance uncovered incriminating evidence in a car boot which unravelled the scam.

Yesterday (Wednesday), all five were sentenced after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud at an earlier trial.

Haque was jailed and banned from acting as a company director for ten year.

Rosul Yusuf, 33, from Ilford, Essex was sentenced to four years and disqualified from being a company director for five years.

Shalim Miah, 29, from Pimlico, was sentenced to two years and banned from being a company director for five years.

Halimur Rashid, 28, from Ilford, received 15 months in jail.

Nazruislam Rahman, 32, from Tottenham and Noveed Akthtar, 40, from Leyton, east London, were sentenced to a year in jail suspended for 12 months.

Raham was also ordered to carrying out 140 hours of unpaid work.

Glen Marr, director of the Insurance Fraud Bureau, said: “Criminals who seek to defraud insurers in this way are deluded if they think they won’t get caught, and equally so if they feel there aren’t very real and serious personal consequences involved.”