A London insurance fraudster has been sentenced into prison after taking out several fake policies for his friends while acting as their ghost broker.
Hojjat Nickhoo, 32, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud in July and was given a 21-month jail term, suspended for two years, at the Old Bailey on August 18.
According to the City of London police, Nickhoo preyed on various friends and acquaintances, many of whom were from Turkish and Iranian communities in and around Enfield and spoke little or no English.
Between October 2010 and April 2012, Nickhoo convinced the victims that he could get them cheap deals on their car insurance even if he was never authorised to act as an insurance broker.
Nickoo charged the victims between £80 and £100 for the policies, but he would often provide false and incorrect details to lower the premiums.
The fraudster later staged accidents and claimed that he or others were injured in collisions involving some of the victims’ vehicles. Authorities even discovered that Nickhoo intentionally crashed a victim’s vehicle so he could make the false injury claim.
In other cases, he persuaded the car owners to go along with the ploy or he simply reported the mishaps without their knowledge.
Based on the authorities’ calculations, over £39,000 worth of attempted injury claims had been submitted as part of the fraud. Police also identified several suspected fraudulent motor insurance claims against more than 20 different insurers that all had links back to Nickhoo.
Nickhoo was arrested by police detectives in December 2015 and was later charged with conspiracy to defraud.
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