Thai man arrested after staging four car accidents to claim fraudulent insurance payouts

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The group allegedly staged the accidents by driving the vehicles onto remote roads along irrigation canals.

PHOTO: THE NATION/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

A Thai man has been arrested on charges of insurance fraud after allegedly masterminding a scam in which four cars were deliberately driven into canals within a single month to claim fraudulent payouts.

On Aug 25, officers from the Economic Crime Suppression Division (ECD) apprehended Mr Anucha, 26, under an arrest warrant for “attempted fraud and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits”.

He was arrested at his home in the Ban Pong district of Ratchaburi province.

The investigation began in May 2024 after an insurance company alerted police to a suspicious claim.

Mr Anucha, a policyholder, had reported a car accident where his vehicle had ended up in a canal in Nakhon Pathom. The insurer noted irregularities and halted the payout, subsequently filing a complaint.

Detectives discovered that Mr Anucha had acquired four cars through separate lease-purchase agreements in a short period and insured them with different companies.

Within just three months, from September to November 2023, all four vehicles were involved in strikingly similar incidents where drivers lost control and plunged the cars into water.

The group filed claims with various insurers. Some companies, unaware of the wider pattern, paid out over 900,000 baht (S$35,590) in damages. Several other cases are still being processed, with total losses projected to exceed 1 million baht.

Further investigation revealed the scam involved four people. Mr Anucha, the ringleader, had leased all four cars in a single month, making only the first instalment on