Fraud Ring That Staged Car Crashes Cost Insurers $1 Million, U.S. Says

The defendants dwell in Washington, California, Nevada, Michigan and British Columbia.

Legal professionals listed for 15 of the 23 defendants didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Tuesday, whereas one other three declined to remark. 4 of the defendants have been nonetheless at massive. Details about the remaining defendant’s lawyer was not listed in courtroom data.

The U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Japanese District of Washington declined to remark additional on the case on Tuesday, together with to say how the defendants had been initially related to at least one one other.

In accordance with the indictment, one of many defendants had mentioned bringing a false misconduct grievance towards the F.B.I. agent investigating the case. As a part of that false narrative, the authorities mentioned, that defendant would declare to the F.B.I. that his household was being threatened by the Mahdi Military, a militia group in Iraq.

In complete, the group staged about 14 collisions, the indictment mentioned. In one in every of them, the authorities mentioned, one of many defendants deliberately drove a Toyota Sienna minivan into an Infiniti FX35, a crossover S.U.V. carrying a number of different defendants, together with the motive force, close to an intersection in Franklin County in southeastern Washington in January 2019.

The minivan’s driver had boasted to the F.B.I. informant concerning the fraud scheme, investigators mentioned.

“I did the insurance coverage within the day and I hit it at night time,” he mentioned, in response to the indictment.

In one other collision, involving a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Chevrolet Traverse in September 2019 in Pasco, Wash., a metropolis within the southeastern a part of the state, two of the defendants used hammers to inflict extra injury to the Jeep earlier than the police arrived, the authorities mentioned.

In April 2020, investigators mentioned, one of many defendants rammed a Chevy Malibu thrice right into a second Chevy Malibu at an intersection in Kennewick, Wash.