Police bust insurance fraud ring

Houstonist's grandmother once told us that certain unscrupulous people would stage automobile accidents to defraud insurance agencies out of money. So that's always been in the back of our mind — Grandma doesn't lie, after all – but we never heard of any real cases until we read the story of the 10 people who have been arrested in an elaborate staged-accident scheme. The group of suspects includes a doctor and two attorneys who helped make the false claims, police said.

Here's how authorities say the scam worked: Members of the gang would stage accidents with each other, make fictitious accident reports and then visit Dr. Michael Alan Koris, a chiropractor. With the report and Koris's records, the suspects would then file a claim with attorneys Alphonsus Ezeoke and Benjamin Mbonu; the money they got from insurance companies was their profit. What the suspects didn't know was that an undercover HPD officer had been working with them since November 2005: He supplied them with cars for the accidents and they paid him with money and cocaine. Other undercover officers were involved in the fake accidents, too. "Our undercover folks were then seen by a doctor and then attorneys who were involved in this case and then the undercover officers for their role in this were paid in money cocaine or both," HPD Capt. Mike Graham told KTRK.

Police said the group has defrauded insurance companies of about $500,000 since 2003. They're still on the lookout for three suspects: 21-year-old Francisco Diaz, 21-year-old Francisco Tapia Jr. and 29-year-old Victoria Martinez. Anyone with information on them should call Crime Stoppers at 713.222.TIPS.