No license, no policy, no problem.....

A Milford woman and a Malden man were indicted on five and twelve counts of motor vehicle insurance fraud, respectively, on Friday March 12, 2010 by a Suffolk County Grand jury. Virgin Lima, a licensed insurance agent in Brighton, was also charged with two counts of accepting gifts to influence business affairs, five counts of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and five counts of larceny over $250. Wanderson Silva (fortunately not this man for arresting officers), a Somerville car salesman, was also charged with nine counts of stealing a driver's license, three counts of accepting gifts to influence business affairs, 12 counts of larceny over $250 and five counts of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Investigators believe that Silva was the mastermind and devised the following game plan: He promised unlicensed customers insurance policies by using legitimate license information from previous customers to obtain Massachusetts commercial automobile policies for his unlicensed customers. He had an agent (Lima) in his pocket and perhaps assumed that a commercial policy would not be as easily linked back to the previous customer. An investigation was ordered in June 2009 at the direction of a tip to the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts.

One can only speculate as to what that tip was. I was unable to retrieve that information. I'd be willing to bet that a registry check to the license number brought back a name and address and after documents were sent to the "legitimate" customer's address (from the registry), he could have tipped off another agent working with Lima or a claims adjuster investigating a claim. There would also have to be someone with knowledge of a connection between Lima and Silva.

Instances in which a tip to the IFB leads to an arrest like this are commonplace in Massachusetts. If Lima and Silva conducted their business in California, then they would have lived happily ever after.

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Problems with original blog: could not find out about how IFB was notified of the case as mentioned previously, found CA story about unlicensed insurance but original query of "selling unlicensed drivers auto insurance" (without quotes in the query) could have been more effective as I found myself looking at Canadian stories of a similar topic and the hit I was interested in was almost on page two of the results.

Insurance Fraud Blog Purpose

This is one blog in my roll that has really hit home. My work at Plymouth Rock in Boston is closely tied to the aim of Insurance Fraud Blog. The website Coalition Against Insurance Fraud was started in 1993 as a way to bring awareness to the general public about the trickle-down affect that insurance fraud has for consumers all around the world. The Executive Director, Dennis Jay, and his staff have compiled mountains of quality information and have armed people with the necessary tools to combat insurance fraud. The opinions and ideas expressed are both interesting and worthwhile to me.

I discovered it while researching the "Conversing" project and was impressed. I did not pursue it as a direct focus for my submission and it was not included in my search log as I was conducting a little "freelance" research after I had found the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts. I felt that it would be better to go with something a little more local but, nevertheless, it helped me determine a focus for Getaway Car. I also found that some hits that I received for the site were not current due to entering a query for my search that was lacking specific time frame.

So there you have it........I thought the inclusion of "Coalition" in the website was a bit strong but it takes teamwork and unity to do the hard work that is necessary. It is, after all, always a battle for the do-gooders to stay ahead in the end.

Reasons for following PInow

I chose to follow the PInow Blogspot because it has numerous resources and is very comprehensive. It claims to be a worldwide directory of private investigators. It seems to touch on a wide array of subjects from national sports stories to European pi's heroic acts.

I had some difficulty finally establishing a feed from this blog as I kept on having it being attached to Google and would see completely unrelated news stories pop up. There was also the website for PInow that I attempted to get a feed from but the entries were not recent. I finally figured out how to get the RSS feed that I was looking for.

First Blog!

Hello out there.....I created this blog as the final assignment for my Professional Investigation course through Boston University. I enjoyed myself throughout the process and I am happy with how things have gone. I have geared it a little towards the cubicle world of the insurance field. Feel free to give me feedback.
Thanks