A man who orchestrated an audacious cash for crash scam has been ordered by a judge to surrender more than £500,000.
Carlisle Crown Court heard the massive fraud saw fake claims being lodged for injuries and damaged cars involved in 27 staged crashes at accident blackspots between 2010 and 2014.
As he sought to make one bogus application, mastermind Mark McCracken pretended to be a woman victim in a recorded phone call to an insurance firm.
At a family address of McCracken were found identity packs which contained fake driving licences, bank books in false names and memory aids on post-it notes for each invented person.
McCracken, now 53, was jailed for seven years in November 2016.
Four Carlisle vehicle dealers and garage owners were among almost three dozen associates drawn into an illegal enterprise — said to be valued at more than £600,000 — which was picked apart during a painstaking police investigation.
A judge who passed sentence on the gang members said McCracken had “conceived, planned and operated” the frauds.
Financial investigators set about clawing back cash from the key players using tough legislation. And at the crown court this afternoon, McCracken, of Ullswater Road, Carlisle, was present as prosecutor Tim Evans announced eye-watering figures from which the defendant admitted he benefited through criminal conduct and lifestyle.
These totalled just under £900,000. “The resolution of this case has been a long time coming,” said Mr Evans, who thanked a financial investigator and members of McCracken’s legal team for their work.
McCracken’s available assets were said to be agreed at £501,315.27, prompting Judge Nicholas Barker to make a confiscation order in that sum.
Of that, £176,171.83 will be used to compensate insurers who were defrauded, while a further £3,390 will go to a named individual.
McCracken, who listened to proceedings from the court dock, must ensure all of his available assets are surrendered within six months, or face serving all or part of a four-and-a-half-year jail term in default.
