ANOTHER "RACKET"

Stratford Evening Post, Volume IV, Issue 223, 1 September 1936, Page 8

ANOTHER "RACKET"

SELF-MUTILATION. Faked Accidents A Business In U.S.A. INSURANCES £200,000 A YEAR. Remarkable allegations of self-mutila-tion to enable the perpetrators to collect insurance money as "victims" of a road accident have been made at Lcs Angeles by the police. Five people, including a woman, have been arrested in connection with a so-called "fake accident plot." Detectives described an astounding scene. The conspirators, they alleged, gathered in a room and turned on the radio full blast to drown any screams. Then they started mutilating one another. One man struck another man near the elbow with a rolling-pin. The arm was thus fractured. A hypodermic syringe, filled with blood, was squirted into one man's ear to simulate the effect of a broken skull. A worn: n meanwhile was busy shredding the skin off her legs with a cheese-grater. As soon as the "injuries" has been completed, another conspirator drove the bleeding, moaning party to the nearest hospital. There he explained their condition by saying that he had unavoidably run into them while they were repairing a puncture on the side of the road. Such synthetic accidents, according to the district attorney, are costing insurance companies £200,000 a year.