Father and son sentenced for role in £60,000 ghost broking scam

A father and son from Leicester have been sentenced following a multiyear motor ghost broking scheme that resulted in over £60,000 of illicit earnings.

Ilyas Rauf, 51, of Normanton Road, pocketed £61,763 from August 2016 to January 2020 by selling fraudulent insurance policies to the public. 

From September 2019 to June 2020, he shared £11,977 of this with his 28-year-old son, Amer Ilyas, also of Normanton Road.

The case was referred to to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (Ifed) by the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), after it linked Ilyas to a total of 52 fraudulent motor insurance policies that had been taken out across four insurers.

Case details

According to Ifed, Ilyas charged his victims a fee of between £200 and £300 to set up low-cost insurance. He used forged employment verification letters from a company named Eastern Catering to fraudulently obtain no-claims discounts.

Eastern Catering shared the same registered address as the office Ilyas used to sell insurance policies.

Officers executed search warrants at Ilyas and Amer’s properties. A warrant was first carried out at Amer’s property, during which officers asked for keys to Ilyas’ office address.

As the keys were not provided, officers forced entry into Ilyas’ office and seized a CCTV recorder.

CCTV footage showed that, while a search warrant was being executed at Amer’s home, Illyas’ brother, Ziaed Rauf, 47, of Thurnview Road, Leicester, removed two computers from Illyas’ office.

Further warrants were carried out at Amer and Ilyas’ addresses. Two computers and a phone belonging to Amer were among items seized.

Analysis of Amer’s phone revealed dozens of messages between him and potential customers, with Amer regularly acting as a go-between and stating that Ilyas would set up the policies.

If a quote was finalised, Amer would ask the contact to visit Ilyas’ office to set up their policy or send a photo of their bank card so that the payment could be processed.

Sentences

Ifed’s financial investigators will now undertake an investigation to identify the total amount that Ilyas and Amer obtained from the ghost broking activity. Confiscation proceedings, which will seek to recover the proceeds of crime, will take place at a later date.

Ilyas was sentenced to 21 months in prison. He pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation, breaching the Financial Services and Markets Act and transferring criminal property.

Amer, meanwhile, was sentenced to 16 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work. He pleaded guilty to money laundering offences.

Finally, Ziaed was sentenced to 18 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work. He pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.

Detective constable Dan Weller, from Ifed, said: “Despite the trio’s attempts to deceive officers during the investigation, the strength of the evidence gathered meant that all three admitted their guilt in court and have now rightfully been held to account for their actions.

”The upcoming confiscation proceedings against Ilyas and Amer should send a clear message that Ifed will use its full suite of options to ensure that ‘ghost brokers’ do not benefit from criminal activity.”