Bone-breaking insurance fraudsters held

POLICE in Sicily have arrested suspected members of two criminal gangs who used body-building weights to break the bones of victims in order to commit insurance fraud.

Eleven people from Palermo, the capital, have been held, including a hospital nurse who procured painkillers for the victims to quell their screams as they were injured.

A police spokesman said the gangs, operating separately in Palermo, recruited drug addicts, alcoholics or people in severe economic difficulty to stage road crashes and obtain insurance payments.

After breaking their bones, they would place the victims next to damaged vehicles at roadsides on the outskirts of the city.

Bogus witnesses would be used to talk to the emergency services.

Police said victims were allowed to choose which bones would be broken. They were attracted by promises of a 30 per cent cut of takings that could run to €150,000 (£135,000) but in reality were only paid €50 to €100 or sometimes nothing at all.

Some victims were left in wheelchairs as a result of their injuries. Police said the gangs had “demonstrated a particular cruelty”.

The officers added that one of the gangs killed a Tunisian man by mistake in January last year when they broke his bones to stage an accident. Despite the death, the criminals continued with the fraud, putting the corpse beside a road and claiming insurance.