“With today’s technology and investigative work, it is just a matter of time before CDI detectives and investigators catch up to those committing insurance fraud. It’s a crime that costs all of us money in higher premiums.” – CSLEA President Alan Barcelona
LOS ANGELES — On December 6, 2021, the California Department of Insurance (CDI) announced that Farrukh Hussain, 37, of Eastvale, was arraigned on 14 felony counts of insurance fraud after allegedly stealing consumers’ identities to file 14 fraudulent insurance claims with six different insurance companies using a “paper collision” scheme, meaning most of the accidents never occurred and only existed on paper.
CDI launched an investigation after multiple insurance companies flagged claims that they had received. An investigation found that Hussain allegedly stole his victims’ insurance information and posed as that his victims to report accidents where he was the other party involved. While posing as his victims, Hussain is accused of admitting fault to the accident and request contact information be updated to his own phone number so the insurance company would contact him regarding the claims instead of the real policyholder in order to get away with the scheme.
According the CDI, detectives discovered Hussain obtained his victims’ insurance information while their vehicles were being worked on at a stereo and tint shop in Covina where he was previously employed for a short time as a “sales-helper”, and is suspected of obtaining victims’ information while brokering vehicle purchases for them. Hussain is accused of using two BMWs, which he owned, that possessed pre-existing damage and presented the same damage on each claim he filed. Many of the claims were for “paper collisions”; however, in one instance, Hussain allegedly obtained one victim’s information from a traffic collision report through a legitimate accident.
Hussain’s alleged actions resulted in a total loss of $17,293 to six different insurance companies.
This case is being prosecuted by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
