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A 'traumatised' Sydney solicitor who claims to be an African civil war refugee has been convicted of faking a $700,000 insurance claim over a car crash.
Amadu Bangura, 31, faces potential prison time after he was convicted of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception for making false claims in relation to an accident which caused a minor dent to the rear bumper bar of his Ford Falcon – a car he claimed was written off.
Bangura filed for compensation to Allianz Insurance, with claims of an injured hip and “difficulty picking up his daughter,” though surveillance obtained by NSW Police Fraud and Cybercrime Squad showed him driving the around in his car after the accident and walking up train station stairs, news.com.au reported.
In submissions to the insurer, Bangura said he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from witnessing “a lot of atrocities in Sierra Leone” and his “father and uncles being shot by rebels,” and was also feeling cursed after his brother was killed in a car accident, also in Sierra Leone.
Police said, however, that Bangura's siblings are alive and well in Australia.
Bangura emigrated from Sierra Leone when he was eight years old, and is a trained solicitor who was working as a migration lawyer at the time of the accident at Lakemba in March 2015.
Magistrate Robyn Denes told Burwood Local Court that there was an “overwhelming case” against Bangura who “seemed to be making things up.”
Bangura said he was suffering from hip and knee pain so severe he could not sit for any longer than 20 minutes after the crash. Notes from one of the eight doctors he consulted also showed that he “remained off work since the time of the accident and is not currently looking for any type of employment.”
Financial and other records obtained by police and Allianz revealed, however, that Bangura travelled on the more than six-hour flight from Sydney to Indonesia three times in four months. Documents, including phone records of phone conversations, also revealed that Bangura was working for SHS Law and for associates and clients.
Furthermore, one report stated that pain in Bangura's right hip may have been due to “a soccer injury... many years ago.” The injury might also be from “a fall at home while cleaning the bathroom and mopping toilets” after the accident.
Magistrate Denes will sentence Bangura for attempting to dishonestly obtain the $700,000 insurance claim on Aug. 15, news.com.au said.
