Insurance scam mastermind jailed

The scam was first uncovered after an NTUC Income executive lodged a police report on April 7, 2009, after suspecting that five motor injury claims he had received were fake.

The claim forms stated that five people were in a car that was hit by a lorry along Ayer Rajah Expressway on December 17, 2008.

After interviewing the lorry diver, he discovered that only two people were in the car when the accident took place and that the whole accident had been staged.

Phang Choon Meng, 38, a former accident claims advisor, pleaded guilty to eight charges in December last year, while nine remaining charges were taken into consideration. He committed the offences between August 2008 and March 2009.

He and his accomplices cheated companies, including NTUC Income and AXA Insurance, of nearly S$96,000 by deliberately jamming on the brakes of the car they were in, in front of a lorry driven by an innocent foreign worker. Other methods involved phantom passengers and bogus personal injury accident claims.

The insurance scam mastermind was sentenced to 27 months' jail on Tuesday.

ORIGINAL SOURCE