Four found guilty over bus ‘crash-for-cash’ scam

Officers were speaking after four people were found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday of playing a part in a fraud conspiracy worth almost £500,000.

Seven other people had already pleaded guilty and all will be sentenced at a later date.

South Yorkshire Police said inquiries began after an apparently routine, minor collision involving a bus and a Vauxhall Zafira in the Burngreave area of Sheffield, on June 17, 2011. The bus driver, Adam Herbert, was in on the plot.

The force said investigations into claims following the crash led to a wider inquiry into the activities of a Sheffield-based accident claims company called City Claims 4 U, run by Mohammed Omar Gulzar and Shoaib Nawaz. They then went on to identify suspects involved in 10 incidents in Halifax, Sheffield and Rotherham.

A spokesman said a series of warrants were executed at a number of addresses linked to City Claims 4 U after officers received information that it had been submitting fraudulent claims to insurance companies.

These claims were boosted by false claims for hiring out replacement vehicles from CCC Hire 4 U – another firm owned by Gulzar.

Yesterday, four people were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud insurance companies between January 1 and July 31, 2011.

They were Gulzar, 31, of Osgathorpe Road, Sheffield; Nawaz, 25, of Earl Marshall Road, Sheffield; Sami Ahmed Selam, 37, of Chester Road, Flint, and Javed Khan, 46, of Nansen Road, Birmingham.

Those who pleaded guilty are: Herbert, 25, of Ecclesfield Road, Sheffield; Saeeda Ali Bi, 39, of Coleridge Gardens, Sheffield; Safaida Bi, 30, of Ings Way, Bradford; Mohammed Abbas Jaffar, 25, of Dintree Croft, Coventry; Saif Allah Kara Glenn, 25, of Middlemarch Road, Coventry; Osman Bakri, 25, of Rockingham Street, Sheffield, and Dusan Pacan, 27, of Cammell Road, Sheffield.

Dc Mark Wootton, who led the investigation, said: “This was a professionally-planned, highly-organised group of individuals who set out to defraud a number of insurance companies by making deliberate false claims and pocketing the money for themselves.”

South Yorkshire Police’s economic crime unit manager, Graham Wragg, said: “After their convictions today, the police will use the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover, as far as possible, any benefit these fraudsters had from their criminal activity.”

Officers worked closely with FirstGroup and the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), a London-based industry organisation to identify and gather evidence.

IFB director Ben Fletcher said it is currently investigating more than 90 criminal gangs involved in “crash- for-cash” fraud.