PALERMO - A police officer and a Carabiniere were among 16 men arrested for involvement in the buying and selling of luxury cars in a large scale insurance scam, Palermo Carabinieri revealed Tuesday. 

  The scammers, operating around Palermo and Villabate, allegedly bought luxury cars, including makes such as Porsche, Ferrari, Range Rover and Mercedes, and would then fake their theft to claim insurance money. They received between 14,000 and 36,000 euros in insurance claims for each car. Once the insurance firm paid out, they would sell the cars, having changed the number plates, for even more profit. 

  The criminals even paid for satellite alarm tracking systems on the cars, no doubt raising their insurance premiums, ripping them off when the cars were ‘stolen’. 

  They registered the cars in the name of unwitting loan sharks, whom they paid between 800 and 1,000 euros.

  The police officer and Carabiniere agent would allegedly help falsify documents to verify the truth of the thefts for the insurance company. In one instance, they allegedly signed a report in the name of a dead woman.

  The insurance company they conned was Allianz, which was considered by the group to be “the quickest and most flexible in the liquidation of claims,” according to the prosecutor Guglielmo Nicastro.

   The operation was led by three brothers and based in a parking complex, run abusively by the brothers. The cooperation of the 16 men involved in the scheme ensured it ran smoothly and undetected for many years. 

   The investigation into the group started in 2017 after a suspicious facebook profile was spotted that suggested money laundering activity. The investigation, that concluded with the group's arrest on Sunday, was conducted by Carabinieri based in Misilmeri and coordinated by prosecutors in Palermo, led by Ennio Petrigni. 

  The three leaders of the operations have been put on house arrest.

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