A pair of suspected Indian Sikh insurance scammers have been caught in the act in Sydney’s west.
Dashcam footage recorded on June 19 of a woman in traditional south Asian clothing walk into the path of a car before lying down in the middle of the road in front of it.
The video, shared on Reddit, then shows a bearded man in a Sikh turban walk over and take photo or video of the woman on the ground, seemingly intending to blackmail the driver and/or attempt to commit insurance fraud.
“My friend was driving in Quakers Hill when suddenly a woman lay on the road in front of his car,” the video caption said.
“They accused him of hitting the woman with his car and threatened him to pay them.”
Australians reacted with fury on social media, with one person commenting: “This is why your insurance premiums are going up”.
“What a grub the guy is recording on his phone. The woman fake falling looked like his mum, he probably forced her to do the acting,” a Reddit user said.
“And these people are giving all immigrants a bad name.”
A spokesperson for the Insurance Council of Australia revealed after a similar incident earlier this year that in 2023 alone there was $560 million worth of detected opportunistic insurance fraud for motor and home policies, with scammers costing the industry an estimated $400 million a year.
“The costs associated with exaggerated or fraudulent claims push up the cost of insurance for every Australian policyholder,” they told Yahoo News.
Noticer News understands the incident has been reported to Riverstone Police Station.
According to the 2021 Census, Quakers Hill is just 52.8% Australian born, with 16.4% giving their ancestry as Indian. The suburb is 15.3% Hindu, and 6.3% Sikh.
