Plenty of fault in this ‘no-fault’ car insurance scam
The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted 13 people from two separate criminal gangs for a $100 million car insurance scam that included health care fraud, money laundering and bribery. Licensed doctors, an NYPD officer and an attorney are among the
accused in what the DOJ is calling the largest no-fault insurance scam in history. (See “U.S. Attorney Announces The Arrest Of 13 Individuals For $100 Million Healthcare Fraud, Money Laundering, And Bribery Scheme,”
Department of Justice, Southern District of New York, Jan. 12, 2022.)
The suspects allegedly leveraged New York and New Jersey’s “no-fault” insurance regulations that require insurance companies to pay all car accident claims that fall below a certain level and pay for medical treatments that result from the accidents.
It’s dubbed “no-fault” because no accident party is declared at fault to avoid legal battles.
According to the DOJ, both groups of suspects operated clinics that recruited accident victims for unnecessary treatments and then billed insurance companies for those treatments. One group of defendants allegedly employed “runners” who bribed 911 operators
and hospital workers to provide confidential information about accident victims and received accident reports from an NYPD officer. A lawyer laundered the group’s ill-gotten gains through his law firms.
Sister act
A pair of Florida siblings earned the No. 8 spot in the IRS’s “top 10 cases” list for 2021 — and cells in federal prison — for a tax return scheme that netted $25 million between 2012 and 2016.
Sisters Petra Gomez and Jakeline Lumucso, of Orlando, schemed their way onto the IRS’s biggest-investigations-of-the-year list when they filed 7,000 phony tax returns through their tax-preparation businesses. According to the Orlando Sentinel, the sisters
recruited undocumented immigrant farmworkers for whom they’d file fake tax returns. They mocked up utility bills and other residency documents, and fabricated W-2s and IDs to complete their scheme.
Gomez was sentenced to eight years in prison and Lumucso was sentenced to four. (See “Orlando sisters’ tax fraud scheme makes IRS top 10 cases for 2021,” by Jeff Weiner, The Orlando Sentinel,
Jan. 10, 2022.)
Cracking down on crypto
While countries such as El Salvador have embraced cryptocurrencies, others haven’t been so accepting. Case in point: Pakistan, which is reportedly contemplating a ban on them.
The Economic Times reports that a committee led by the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has proposed outlawing cryptocurrency in the country, citing concerns of crypto’s role in money laundering and terrorist financing. The SBP previously
issued a circular in 2018 prohibiting Pakistani banks from dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to the article, cryptocurrency has been under increased scrutiny from government investigators in Pakistan because of an alleged scam involving a local Binance cryptocurrency exchange that allegedly bilked investors of $100 million. (See “Pakistan plans crypto ban; industry players call it big mistake,” by Pawan Nahar, Jan. 14, 2022.)
