Fraudster who staged collisions gets 3.5 years

A 38-year-old Scarborough man who staged more than a dozen car crashes and defrauded insurance companies of $1.5 million has been sentenced to three and a half years in a federal prison.

Uthayakanthan Thirunavukkarasu, also known as Max or Mano, was also was ordered to pay $375,000 in restitution during a court appearance in Toronto on Thursday.

Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to 17 counts of fraud, being a member of a criminal organization and assault causing bodily harm.

During his sentencing, Justice John McMahon called Thirunavukkarasu’s  organization “sophisticated.”

His organization cruised salvage yards for wrecked vehicles that had been written off. Then a licensed mechanic would supply fraudulent safety certificates and members would crash the cars into each other on city streets.

Insurance companies wrote cheques to replace the cars and provided medical benefits to 46 passengers, whose health assessments came from people who worked for Thirunavukkarasu.

Thirunavukkarasu purchased cars that were written off and had them fraudulently certified He recruited drivers to insure them and participate as drivers or passengers in the fake collisions.

In court, Thirunavukkarasu said he had witnessed his parents and sister being killed when he was just a child, and had been treated for depression since he was six years old.

With files from Marianne Boucher

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