Friday 19th February 2010

In San Mateo, California, Mahran Baranriz (47) and his wife Bita Imani (35) pleaded no contest to 10 counts of insurance fraud. They ran the Group Specialists car repair shop in Redwood City and had billed customers by putting rats in their cars and claiming the vehicles needed costly work to fix rodent damage. Baranriz was sentenced to 4 years in prison, and his wife to 6 months in jail. A day earlier they ware ordered to pay $875,000 in restitution to 25 insurance companies.