A conman who went on an extraordinary and multi-faceted spree of insurance fraud worth a potential £321,000 has been jailed. Abdul Hakim, 27, posed as a broker to lure drivers into buying fake car insurance, then used their details to make a string of fraudulent personal injury claims – even posing as a solicitor and claims management company to further his deception.

The Oldham man sold 21 fake car insurance policies and made 18 fraudulent claims for fictional accidents before he was arrested earlier this year. Appearing at Bradford Crown Court on Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.

The court Hakim acted as a ghost broker to entice unsuspecting drivers with offers of cheap car insurance, altering the address on policy applications to a location where premiums were low, then changing back the policies with the victim’s actual address.

Armed with details of his ghost broking victims, as well as a ‘finder’s fee’ charged to each of them, he searched websites advertising damaged vehicles for sale and used these vehicles to fabricate an accident that never happened.

With access to his victim’s online insurance account, he would contact the insurer pretending to be the policy holder and provide details of the crash and accept fault. Hakim would then go on to contact the same insurer, but this time posting as the other driver or their claims management company, providing identical details of the accident and making a claim for compensation.

On some occasions he called purporting to be from solicitors representing the claimant, and he would also provide false mechanic reports, heavily inflated credit hire charges and fake evidence of injuries to bolster his potential payout.

But insurance companies became suspicious of the claims and reported their concerns to the police Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department. Claims were found to involve people who did not exist, or people living at different addresses to when the policy was incepted.

Detective constable Jamie Kirk, who led the investigation, said: ‘By selling fake car insurance, Hakim put these drivers at risk as they were completely unaware that they were driving illegally. As well as the personal harm experienced by victims, ghost brokers like Hakim cause financial harm to the insurance industry, driving up the cost of insurance premiums for all motorists.’