The “Ghost Insurance Broker” from Leeds has been jailed after managing to pocket a reported £45,000 through an insurance scam.
Posing under the company name ‘Car Direct’, Razwan Iqbal advertised cheap car insurance policies in his local restaurants, and made the money scamming his local community.
The mechanics of his scam involved giving false information to insurers in order to take out as cheap a policy he could get. He then charged the drivers more than this price, plus an extra handling fee.
However, by giving the false information, all of the policies became invalid immediately, and Iqbal left the drivers driving around with no insurance cover.
His scam was exposed when a series of 41 insurance policies were linked to the same email account by the insurer First Central. This information was passed on to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, who investigated.
Mr. Iqbal pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud and of money laundering at his trial last month. He was sentenced to 12 months in jail for the fraud and a further 3 months for the money laundering.
DC Jamie Kirk, who led the investigation, commented: “He left his victims unknowingly out on the road with no insurance, exposing them and other drivers to risk and financial loss with seemingly no care for the potential consequences of his actions…. this threat to motorists has now been shut down.”