Five police officers from different units around the country were indicted on corruption charges yesterday on suspicion of being involved in a conspiracy to defraud insurance companies by falsifying documents on car accidents to make bogus insurance claims.
Taipei prosecutors said the five officers were from Taipei, New Taipei City (新北市), Taoyuan County and Greater Kaohsiung. Three other officers involved in the case remain under investigation.
A total of 20 people were indicted yesterday, prosecutors said, adding that the main suspect, Wang Kuo-jui (王國瑞), and his wife, Huang Ching-ching (黃菁菁), both worked for insurance companies and were familiar with the claims process.
The couple are suspected of conspiring with police officers to produce the documents needed to make an insurance claim for a car accident.
From 2004 until last year, they are believed to have fabricated 38 bogus cases and fraudulently claimed NT$90.4 million (US$3 million) from insurance companies.
Prosecutors concluded that Wang had been responsible for recruiting eight police officers around the nation to help with his scheme to defraud the insurance companies.
The couple are suspected of keeping NT$63 million of the ill-gotten gains, while sharing the remaining NT$30 million with the other suspects, prosecutors said, adding that the suspects returned some of the money during the investigation.
The four insurance companies defrauded were Taian Insurance Co, First-Aviva Insurance Co, Shinkong Insurance Co and Fubon Insurance Co.
The suspects believed to have participated in the elaborate scheme invented police car accident records, made fake pictures of accidents, paid people to pretend to be car accident victims and made false medical records, prosecutors said.
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