Originally published at: Dashcam thwarts insurance scam on New York City's Belt Parkway - Boing Boing
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I’m shocked this sort of scam has taken so long to start showing up in the US. I bought a dash cam as soon as similar videos from Russia and China started making the internet rounds. That was at least 15 years ago. 
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I can certainly imagine why. Although some of those Russian ones the “victims” don’t play around and things don’t always go the way the scammer intends. I suspect in certain parts of the US intentionally cutting someone off, brake checking, and then reversing into them might have the police involved for things far more serious than a damaged car.
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These scams have been around for a long time. There’s a 1969 film by Nagisa Oshima based on a real case of a man who forced his son to jump in front of cars and pretend to be hit.
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I think it might not catch on in the USA, gun owners who are prone to road rage over being cut off might react a little strongly to being deliberately hit.
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The ones where a pedestrian does a dive on the hood of a stopped car are sad. (In hopes of extorting a quick cash payout to go away.)
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As someone who works for a property/casualty insurance company and deals with suspected staged losses semi-regularly, I love dashcams.
Video footage is a royal PITA to get entered into evidence in a New York Court, procedure-wise. But its really fun to bring in the insured for an Examination Under Oath (“EUO”) to identify and describe the video. Then I bring in the claimants (people in the other car or pedestrian) and show it to them. It helps that in New York, insurance companies have an unlimited right by both law and contract to bring in insureds/claimants for an EUO
The 3 times I had this sort of thing, ended up with the lawyers for the claimants dropping their clients out of fear of promoting fraud.
BTW there is a very good reason police aren’t interested. Unless they personally observed an accident, anything they note in a report besides ID and insurance information is inadmissible in Court as hearsay.
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New York City has very strict gun control laws and a very active Russian mafia running insurance scams. Avoid getting into a car accident in Brooklyn and Queens is about the best advice I can give.
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the “swoop and squat” has been around for a long time; here’s an Allstate commercial about it from 20 years ago.
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Yeah - but that is not the usual modus operandi. These guys were some combination of desperate and dumb. Usually they just slam on the brakes and rely on the car behind rear-ending them. It’s the personal injury claims for whiplash that make the money. Reversing into the car behind is just asking for trouble. They either hadn’t thought their mark here would have such good reflexes or are just not too good at it and misjudged speeds/distances. The other variant seen in UK is to slow down on an on-ramp and the car behind fails to hit them, but cars behind don’t and shove the target into the scammer anyway.
ETA this video is not on an on-ramp but I’ve seen a few that are. Everyone accelerating to motorway speed makes for a more reliable rear-ender.
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The fact that the cops don’t care seems more disappointing than usual here; given that (while the intended objective seems to have been similar) actually deliberately ramming someone with a vehicle certainly seems like it should be a much more assault-y flavor of conduct to work with than stopping in a way liable to get you rear ended is.
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Additionally- that looks like vehicular assault. They may be facing criminal charges in addition to a suit for the injuries they caused the victims.
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Cops can’t do much. Unless they witnessed the incident, nothing they report at the scene is admissible evidence in court besides ID/Insurance information and personal observations after the fact. New York is especially difficult there.
Generally if there are two+ cars in motion involved, they presume it’s an accident. Usually they don’t get the vehicular assault vibe unless one car was parked or there was a pedestrian involved.
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Is this specific to traffic law? Otherwise how is the dashcam video evidence different than security cam video in a criminal investigation of a crime the detective did not witness?
I know in my state, traffic law can be very different than criminal law. But it would seem there is a crime going on here. Maybe it needs to be passed from a traffic investigation to a criminal one?
Couldn’t the real victim file a criminal complaint?
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This type of ‘staged auto accident’ has been going on in the US for decades. There was an explosion of such incidents starting in the 1990s and involving injury lawyers who would usually engage immigrants and the poor, all desperate for money. The “victims” were instructed to get as many people as possible in a car to maximize the claim in a single “accident”.
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It’s a function of state rules of evidence statutes and prevailing case law in the NYC metro area. Most notably the “2nd Judicial Department” comprising Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island, being the harshest on the subject.
A police accident by its nature has at least two people with opposing accounts as to what happened. It’s presumed to be a civil matter by default.
Fraud investigations typically focus on the people running the operations. The lawyers and doctors bilking the insurance companies. Fraud operations can get extensive.
Typically you will see insurance companies using civil RICO actions rather than pursue criminal actions. A “preponderance of the evidence” is an easier burden than “beyond reasonable doubt” and it gives a chance at recovering money from the fraudsters.
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class E felony. class D if serious injury or death results. They passed that law in 2019.
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Upstanding citizens. Only had that license plate for a few months (NY didn’t start issuing “L” plates until maybe a year ago) and already 6 parking and camera violations:
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Do you happen to know what the typical sentences/fines were for lawyers and doctors who were found guilty?
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