Gardaí target solicitors over ‘filing of false injury claims’
A SOLICITORS’ office in Dublin has been raided by gardaí investigating the firm’s alleged deliberate lodgement of false personal injury claims, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
Over 130 files were seized by officers from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau when they raided the office on Monday.
Fraud squad detectives are investigating if the firm knowingly lodged fictitious personal injury claims arising from staged accidents by drivers.
Gardaí have intelligence that motorists from the UK are ‘flying into Ireland’, renting cars and then staging accidents in order to make a claim for damages against car insurers.
Sources say that the drivers are staging accidents up around the border, in Dundalk, Co. Louth, in particular, and then lodging personal injury claims before
‘Crashing cars around border’
returning home to the UK.
Well-placed sources say the solicitors have more than 130 claims on behalf of clients that are part of this alleged ‘widescale fraud’. It is understood that in some cases, the claimants have already been awarded damages, while the majority of cases are still making their way through the legal system.
Detectives will now painstakingly examine all of the suspect personal injury claim files it has seized from the practice.
A source explained: ‘There have been no arrests yet but this solicitors’ firm are on our radar for knowingly assisting in legally lodging false personal injury claims. The drivers and passengers are flying in from the UK, renting cars and then crashing the cars around the border, Louth in particular. They are then lodging false personal injury claims with this solicitors’ firm and gardaí believe their legal representatives are well aware of what is going on.’
The major Garda investigation has been ongoing for the past two years. No arrests have yet been made but officers are ‘slowly but surely’ building a strong case against the UK criminals arranging the false crashes, as well as the solicitors accused of deliberately helping the gang.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that solicitors have been targeted by gardaí over alleged criminal wrongdoing.
The Mail previously revealed that a solicitor, aged in his 50s and with close links to one of Ireland’s most serious gangland criminals, was arrested at his south Dublin home in late May as part of an inquiry into alleged forgery of property deeds.
Sources say he is suspected of acting on behalf of criminals who made more than €250,000 in relation to these properties, located in north and south Dublin.
The same solicitor previously represented a high-profile criminal during a murder investigation. That criminal is not linked to this recent property fraud investigation.