How Are We Doing?
Some Current Statistics

Arrests and Convictions: First Quarter, 2000 – 2002

• Arrests resulting from Frauds Bureau investigations in the first quarter of 2002 totaled 281, more than double the total for the same period in 2001. The Frauds Bureau posted 178 arrests during the first three months of 2000.

• Several successful sweeps contributed to the significant number of arrests during the January–March 2002 period. Twenty suspects were arrested in January and accused of staging accidents, filing fake accident reports, and submitting phony medical bills. The Frauds Bureau conducted the investigation jointly with the Attorney General’s newly established Auto Insurance Fraud Unit and the NYPD. In March, 30 individuals, including 24 car owners and six alleged middlemen, were charged in a $1.6 million undercover sting operation that resulted in the recovery of 68 reportedly stolen cars. According to the charges, the owners turned over their cars to middlemen, filed insurance claims falsely reporting them stolen and received settlements of as much as $32,000. The middlemen allegedly sold the cars to undercover detectives posing as junkyard dealers.

• The number of criminal convictions obtained by prosecutors in Frauds Bureau cases reached 105 for the January–March 2002 period, compared with 37 and 89, respectively, for the same period in the two prior years.

• The Frauds Bureau received more than 6,300 reports of suspected insurance fraud during the first three months of 2002, down from nearly 9,600 for the same period a year ago and almost 6,800 in 2000. The Bureau has averaged more than 20,000 reports received annually since 1995, hitting an all time high of 26,028 in 2001.