Danger men
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henever you hear of a new autorelated crime—car-jacking, drive-by shooting, and so on—you can bet your bottom dollar that it started in the good old US of A. The latest misdemeanour to add to this growing list is "staged car crash fraud". America's biggest car insurers, State Farm Mutual, is to sue 25 doctors, lawyers and claimants whom it is accusing of staging more than 350 freeway crashes. This crime has become so widespread that is has acquired its own lingo. The crashes are known as "swoops and squats"; they are organised by fixers referred to as "cappers" who have links to crooked doctors and lawyers. The scam works like this: two "swoop" cars will drive onto the freeway on the lookout for a likely target—a fully insured car. The "squat" car (usually filled with immigrants who are paid around $200 for their trouble) drives in front of the unsuspecting vehicle and slams on its brakes causing a rear-end collision, for which the target vehicle will always be liable. The passengers in the "squat" car are then sent by the "cappers" (are you following me so far?) to dodgy doctors who will make greatly exaggerated diagnoses. The insurance company usually settles out of court because it wants to avoid long, expensive court cases, Now these fraudsters are targeting HGVs because the potential premiums are much higher. Scary stuff. Let's hope this is one craze that doesn't cross the pond._