Specialist fraud police are searching for a Hertfordshire-based insurance broker who was expelled from the financial services industry for defrauding hundreds of doctors’ surgeries in a £400,000 scam.
The Hertfordshire Fraud Squad is investigating Mark Hazelwood, 46, who was banned by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) this month for “dishonestly misleading clients” over non-existent insurance policies to cover the costs of replacement doctors.
Mr Hazelwood is believed to be in South-East Asia. British investigators are believed to have asked their counterparts in several Asian countries for assistance. Hertfordshire Police and the FSA declined to comment.
Mr Hazelwood — who has not been accused of any criminal offence — could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The FSA found that as sole director of Synergys Ethical Limited, Mr Hazelwood pretended to sell insurance to GP surgeries across the UK, but kept the premiums and did not arrange cover. In some instances, Mr Hazelwood, who ran his business over the internet, sent clients forged insurance certificates to support the deception, the FSA said.
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Mr Hazelwood specialised in selling locum insurance that would cover GP surgeries against the costs of hiring replacement doctors at short notice when regular staff could not work. GP locums command rates of up to £200 an hour. Surgeries are not required to have specific locum insurance.
Mr Hazelwood received FSA authorisation and began to sell insurance through Synergys Ethical in January 2005. He sold about 200 policies worth a combined £360,000, charging premiums ranging between £500 and £7,000.
After Synergys Ethical was forced into liquidation by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in 2008, Mr Hazelwood opened another company, called Aquote. He contacted all Synergys’ clients to say that the business had been bought by Aquote and sold a further £25,000 worth of policies, the FSA said. It began investigating Mr Hazelwood in September 2008 after a complaint from a GP surgery that claimed on its locum insurance policy but did not receive payment.
In its written statement to Mr Hazelwood, the FSA said that it had “concluded that you never intended to pass on premiums to insurers or pay any claim ... and that it was your intention to continue to obtain money under false pretences for your own personal gain”.
All evidence, including documents seized in an FSA raid of Mr Hazelwood’s home and business premises, have been passed to police. The FSA will have no further involvement in the case.
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Although the FSA is a criminal prosecutor for specialist offences such as insider dealing, it is not the primary UK prosecutor for fraud offences and so regularly passes more general cases, such as mortgage frauds and boiler rooms, to the police. Margaret Cole, the FSA’s head of enforcement and financial crime, has said that the agency would seek to work with other prosecutors to investigate financial crimes that are beyond its remit.
In December, Nottingham Police arrested six mortgage brokers on suspicion of fraud shortly after they had been banned by the FSA. The previous month the FSA teamed up with the City of London Police to arrest one individual and raid premises in London and Scotland in an investigation related to suspected boiler rooms.