Serial fraudster must pay £210,000 or serve another five years

A former boxer who called himself ‘Kevin Heartbreak’ in the ring must pay back £210,000 made from a car insurance scam or go back to jail for five years, a judge ruled.

Hamid Sediqi, 38, who has a number of other aliases including Hamid Sharifi, and Najib Sharifi, has convictions for ‘crash for cash’ scams dating back more than a decade.

In 2013 he was jailed for 18 months at the Old Bailey for conning insurance giants Aviva out of £48,977 after he invented a dozen car smashes, using scrapped vehicles.

The fraudster was jailed for four years in May 2021 after he cloned a claims management company and made over 60 fraudulent motor insurance claims.

Sediqi had teamed up with girlfriend Belma Draganovic and reality TV star Mason Smith to carry out the swindle.

They used pictures of damaged cars they found on the internet to use for their claims, a court heard.

Smith, who appeared as a contestant on dating reality TV show Singletown, was handed a community order including a three-month tagged curfew.

Draganovic was handed an 11-month suspended prison sentence following the case at Inner London Crown Court in 2021.

Sediqi returned to court for a confiscation hearing where a judge ruled he had made £400,368 in benefit from his latest scam with £210,000 in available assets.

This included a luxurious penthouse apartment in Gran Canaria and a Mazda RX7.

Sediqi, of Harrow, northwest London, was given three months to pay £210,000 or face another five years in jail after proceedings brought by the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).

He had been referred to IFED for investigation after a legitimate claims management company discovered he had posed as its director.

Sediqi offered to refer claims to a solicitors firm in exchange for a fee.

He received referral fees, and detectives found that he was also linked to the bank accounts that received the compensation payments.

A separate investigation by IFED and insurer Aviva had linked Sediqi, along with Draganovic and Smith, to 62 fraudulent motor insurance claims.

IFED has secured its first ever Serious Crime Prevention Order against Sediqi following his release from prison in March 2023, placing him under a range of restrictions to prevent him from committing further offences.

They include limitations on the number of mobile phones and current bank accounts that Sediqi can hold.

Breach of the order is a criminal offence and punishable by up to five years imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Detective Chief Inspector Tom Hill, from IFED said: ‘Sediqi managed to fraudulently accrue hundreds of thousands of pounds by targeting solicitors and insurance companies, and stealing the identities of companies and members of the public.

‘Our work doesn’t just stop at conviction, and I’d like to thank IFED’s financial investigators for their determination and diligence in securing the confiscation order.

‘This result means that Sediqi will not be able to benefit any further from the money he earned through criminal activity, and shows that IFED has the ability to recover criminal assets and return them to victims of insurance fraud.’

Carl Mather, Special Investigations Unit Manager at Aviva, said:

‘Aviva originally identified Kevin Heartbreak (corr) as a serial fraudster 10 years ago for which he was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and was forced to pay back the proceeds of his crimes.

‘This most recent case underlines the need for the incoming whiplash reforms to tackle the disproportionate compensation attached to whiplash claims, which continues to attract fraudsters, and which pushes up premiums for all genuine customers.

‘Although Heartbreak may have believed his latest enterprise was beyond detection, he was wrong. I’m pleased that Aviva quickly uncovered the scale of his offending and the roles of those involved, and we will continue to fight fraud and prosecute offenders – in this case, for the second time.’
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