SA Police Bust Car Insurance Fraud Syndicate

January 14 - In a carefully coordinated cross border operation, following many months of undercover monitoring, the South African police announced that it had bust one of the largest car insurance fraud syndicates in the history of the country.

The syndicate, which stole luxury cars from South Africa worth millions of rand, was caught out in Lesotho.

Police said that two Lesotho nationals were arrested in the four day operation, while a South African national managed to escape and was still at large.

The police said that they seized R10 million worth of luxury vehicles that had been stolen in South Africa, mainly from the Johannesburg and Pretoria region but also from Durban and the Free State.

The syndicate has been under observation for some time now and it is believed to be in operation for over three years.

The ten man police team raided warehouses and buildings, recovering the luxury vehicles that were used for car insurance fraud purposes.

"We are continuing with our investigations," said a spokesperson for the police, Superintendent Tummi Golding. "We believe that the syndicate includes police and border officials, who facilitate the smuggling of the stolen cars across the Lesotho-South African border."

"Other things that the investigation will look into includes whether any of the owners of the cars, whose vehicles were not taken for insurance purposes, were either injured or killed when their vehicles were stolen," add Golding."

The South African Insurance Agency, established to combat insurance fraud, estimates that this type of crime costs the industry close to R1 billion each year.