Romanian immigrant Alex Dettmar: 'I'm shocked by the price of insurance in the UK' Eastern European immigrants have devised a scam that lets them drive in Britain without insurance. They register their cars in their home states, paying tiny premiums for policies that become invalid if they live abroad for more than six months. To get around this, they go on day-trips to Calais and other ports twice a year and keep the return boarding cards. These are shown to police if they are stopped as ‘evidence’ that they have recently brought the car from their country of origin and are therefore insured. Detailed inquiries would expose the lie but the drivers are taking advantage of the fact that checks with foreign authorities and insurers are difficult, time-consuming and expensive, so officers rarely pursue them. Some 30,000 claims a year involve uninsured drivers, many of them foreign registered. Details of the scam will be aired tonight on BBC1’s Inside Out London, which features a 30-year-old Romanian, Alex Dettmar, who lives in Brent Cross and admits travelling to Calais twice a year to make it appear he has gone home. He said: ‘I’m shocked by the price of insurance in the UK, considering it is seven times cheaper to have it insured back home. ‘So what do you do? I just registered the car over there and use it on Romania number plates.’ A Kent police officer, who asked not to be named, told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s become a running joke that when you pull over an Eastern European car the driver takes a boarding card from the glove compartment. ‘We know what they’re up to but the choice is either spending hours or days sometimes building a case against them or using the time to deal with more serious offences.’ Seaside scam: Eastern European immigrant take day trips to Calais to keep their insurance policies validMigrant car insurance scam exposed: Police admit it's 'become a running joke'
Last updated at 4:07 AM on 28th February 2011
Monday, 28 February 2011
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