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DALLAS - For years Frenchitt Collins worked as a legitimate insurance adjustor. He was able to pull off a major insurance fraud by luring in victims with ads. Ultimately Collins was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution to his victims. "Those P.O. boxes were rented by him (Collins), his wife, his brothers, or his girlfriends," said Bodon. In order to attract clients with ads, he would go ahead and offer them $100 or $200 to use their identifiers. Once that information was received, Collins went ahead and completed medical forms necessary and sent them to insurance companies. The goal of these ads was to lure in more victims. Insurance companies would then send Collins checks, lots of checks. Federal officials said insurance fraud is a $30 billion business in the U.S. "It is very lucrative for the criminal to perpetrate the crime because it's low risk and it's high reward and they know that," said Fred Lohmann of the National Insurance Crime Burea.

On May 28 of this year, Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams charged a South Philadelphia auto body shop owner named Ronald Galati, Sr. and a group of 40 co-conspirators in a nearly $5 million insurance fraud scheme. These charges were the result of a 16-month Grand Jury investigation of American Collision and Auto Center at 1930 S. 20th St. According to prosecutors, Galati would stage single-vehicle accidents because insurance companies consider them "no-fault" and routinely pay the claims without raising the car owners' premiums. According to Grand Jury witnesses, Galati would say, "I live my life to cheat insurance companies." Among those arrested were a former Philadelphia police officer, Douglas DiEmidio, and a mechanic with the city's Office of Fleet Management, Robert Otterson.