A couple was imprisoned after an insurance fraud involving 60 deliberate accidents.
The Court of Appeal in the Netherlands sentenced a couple from Den Bosch, a 52-year-old man and his 54-year-old wife, to nine months in prison after they were convicted of deliberate insurance fraud. The court confirmed that the couple intentionally caused dozens of accidents in parking lots in the city of Den Bosch between 2014 and 2020 in order to obtain financial compensation.
The couple had a repeated method, as they would sit together in the car and deliberately collide with other cars that were exiting their parking spaces. After the accident, the wife would leave the car under the pretext of going to get her child, while the husband approached the affected driver and asked him to fill out a damage report, claiming that the accident was the fault of the other party.
One of the victims recounted to Omroep Brabant what happened to her, saying: "I was quietly exiting the parking lot when a car sped by and we collided. It happened suddenly, then a man from the other car came and almost forced me to fill out a damage report immediately." It later turned out that the couple had deliberately caused about sixty accidents, allowing them to collect large sums in insurance compensation, with one victim paying 9,500 euros, and the total amount they obtained from the fraud reaching about 165,000 euros.
The insurance company discovered the matter after noticing the repeated submission of an abnormally high number of claims. The company's investigation showed that the likelihood of two individuals being involved in this number of accidents naturally is almost impossible.
The court initially issued a sentence of eight months in prison, but the couple appealed the ruling, resulting in the penalty being increased to nine months. The judges described their method as "systematic, repetitive, and clever," while the prosecution described their actions as "professional and shameless fraud." The court also ordered the couple to pay financial compensation to two of the affected victims.