Ex-Met officer admits role in car insurance scam

An ex-Metropolitan Police officer has admitted his role in a "crash for cash" scam in order to receive thousands of pounds in personal injury and vehicle damage payouts.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Kuldip Singh, 42, had been a serving officer at the time of the offences. He fled the country after being dismissed without notice from the Met in November 2017 and was extradited from Georgia on 4 March.

Busola Johnson, a prosecutor with the CPS, said Singh showed a "sustained pattern of calculated dishonesty, carried out for financial gain and designed to deceive insurers, employers and the justice system itself".

Sentencing will take place at Southwark Crown Court on 2 June.

In one incident on 11 March 2016, a member of the group, Raiyaan Anwar, deliberately drove a Tesco delivery van into the back of a white Citroën being driven by Singh.

Four other passengers in the car were also involved in the scam.

Anwar, 32, admitted liability for the crash to his employer, leading to five fraudulent personal injury compensation claims totalling £33,362 - although only £912 was ultimately paid out.

Singh also ran a car hire company, ADK Supreme, with another man, Alper Emin, 55.

The pair obtained high-value vehicles on finance and rented them out to individuals who would have been unlikely to be able to afford the vehicles themselves, according to CPS.

After one client of ADK Supreme crashed a rented Mercedes, Singh and Emin lied to avoid liability, falsely claiming a burglary had taken place at the company's address and that the key to the crashed vehicle had been stolen.

Singh received £16,145 from an insurance company following the false claim to cover the damage.

CPS said that Singh had claimed three other leased cars, which were either involved in crashes or issued with road traffic violation tickets, had been cloned in an attempt to avoid being held responsible.

Singh also created a fake police report about the cloning of one of his leased cars and persuaded a member of police staff to make the entry.

Singh, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, fraud by false representation, two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, two counts of perverting the course of justice and unauthorised access to a computer to facilitate the commission of further offences.

The co-suspects, Anwar, Emin, Krishna Gnanaseelan, 31, and Singh Dehal, also 31, remain at large after also fleeing the country.

They have been prosecuted in their absence and their cases have concluded.

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