Investigation results in guilty plea

The biggest investigation by the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) since it launched just over a year ago, saw on the 1st February 2013 a fraudster plead guilty to selling hundreds of non-existent car insurance policies to drivers across the UK.

Danyal Buckharee admitted setting up two websites – Aston Midshires Insurance and First Car Direct Insurance – advertising cheap car insurance and, between May 2011 and April 2012, using them to dupe 600 drivers into buying worthless policies – pocketing over £550,000.

Det Ch Insp Dave Wood, Head of IFED, said: “This is the biggest investigation we undertook in 2012 and I am very pleased that our hard work has delivered the right result, without Buckharee having to go to trial.

“Buckharee masterminded an extensive car insurance fraud that made him hundreds of thousands of pounds and left hundreds of drivers unknowingly out on the road with no insurance. Buckharee exposed his victims to risk and financial loss but now it is his turn to pay the price of his fraud.”

The 42-year-old, from Putney in London, sent his victims fake insurance certificates meaning some drivers only realised they had been conned when they had their car seized by police for having no insurance.

Buckharee’s fraud first came to light in late 2011 when the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) began receiving an increasing number of complaints from drivers who had been stopped by police, which they passed onto the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) for review.

The day IFED launched (3 January 2012), the IFB handed the reports to the unit’s detectives who launched a police investigation.

- See more at: http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/Media/News/010212-fraudsterpleadsguilty.htm