OREANDA-NEWS. December 17, 2009. Ingosstrakh IJSC security officers together with Krasnodar region RDCOC (Regional Directorate for Combating Organized Crime) officers have exposed an organized criminal group, which engaged in imitating traffic accidents for a long time, and have prevented illegal insurance payments. The measures that were taken helped to significantly reduce activities of such criminal groups in the region.

Cooperation of the Data Analysis and Security Department of Ingosstrakh and RDCOC officers has resulted in initiation of a criminal case and exposure of 36 suspects, operations of which could be classified as those of an organized criminal group with specific roles, performed by each criminal. The group includes 9 officers of traffic police, who processed documents for false traffic accidents, and a car expert, who performed assessment of "damaged" vehicles. The goal of the criminal group was to receive illegal insurance payments from insurance companies, including Ingosstrakh IJSC.

RDCOC investigators accused 25 members of the organized criminal group, including 6 traffic police officers, and Lenisnky Court of Krasnodar convicted all of them.

 "In order not to fall victim to criminals, every car owner has to know how to behave in a situation of traffic accident imitation, - says Alexander Gulyayev, Director of the Data Analysis and Security Department of Ingosstrakh IJSC. – The mode of action is quite simple: switch on emergency lights, put up a breakdown triangle, it is required to report the accident to "02" service from your phone, make a firm statement to the other party that there will be no negotiations until the police arrives on the scene, including negotiations of who is the guilty party in the accident, wait for arrival of the traffic police, try to memorize license plates on the criminals’ car.

Most likely, in a situation like this, criminals will not be waiting for arrival of the police and will try to flee. Such criminal offense is described in Part 3, Article 159 of the Criminal Code (Fraud). The maximum penalty for such crimes may be up to 6 years in prison. Criminals are well aware of this and in no event will go for more serious crimes, like extortion etc. Let me say this again, you should not be afraid to call law enforcement officers for help ".

Overall for Ingosstrakh IJSC, over 11 months of 2009 the Data Analysis and Security Department officers have uncovered one thousand cases of attempted insurance fraud, resulting in prevention of illegal payments for the total amount of over RUB 400 mln.