MOSCOW, March 1, 2012
A group of 36 Russians was busted on Wednesday in New York for allegedly running a $279-million insurance fraud scam involving false car accident victims, corrupt doctors and lawyers, the Federal Bureau of Investigations said.
Doctors who were members of the scheme opened over 100 phony clinics across New York which provided excessive treatment to purported crash victims who were allegedly paid up to $10,000 a month "to show up once a week just to sign referrals," the FBI said in a statement.
The lawyers involved in the scam advised the phony patients on what injuries to claim in order to boost the insurance payments.
The criminal scheme exploited New York’s "no-fault" auto accident law that guarantees up to $50,000 for car accident victims.
“Today’s charges expose a colossal criminal trifecta, as the fraud’s tentacles simultaneously reached into the medical system, the legal system, and the insurance system, pulling out cash to fund the defendants’ lavish lifestyles,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in the statement.
Bharara called the scam “the largest single no-fault automobile insurance fraud ever charged.”
If found guilty, the defendants may face jail terms ranging from between 30 and 70 years.
SOURCES : RIA Novosti
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