Italian cops bust ‘bone-breaking’ insurance fraud gangs

ROME: Italian police yesterday dismantled two “bone-breaking” gangs in Sicily which had been smashing victims’ limbs in order to stage road accidents and defraud car insurance companies.

Over 40 people were arrested in Palermo after investigators discovered hard-up victims were having their arms or legs broken in exchange for a small part of the pay- out from insurers.

Those in on the fraud included false witnesses to the accidents, doctors providing fake medical reports, physiotherapy centres certifying care that was never provided, and a lawyer filing the claims, police said.

The victims were “people on the margins of society... drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill”.

They were promised a cut of the insurance pay- out, but took home as little as US$ 340.

Police initially uncovered the scam in 2017 after the death of a Tunisian who initially appeared to have died in a road accident, but was discovered during the autopsy to have had a heart attack after a beating.

Eleven people were arrested in a first operation against two other gangs in Sicily last August, and three of them turned state witness, leading police to investigate some 250 suspects. Around 60 attacks were uncovered in wiretaps, with the criminals preferring to target teenage single mothers because the payouts were bigger.

Five of those arrested yesterday specialised in the bone breaking, according to the Giornale di Sicilia local daily, including one dubbed “Tony the Meek”. The head of one of the gangs drove a luxury car and owned a speedboat, reports said.

The road “accidents” were staged in areas not covered by video surveillance cameras.

Gang members would then pose in hospital as the victims’ relatives, to ensure they stuck to the story.–