The NYPD is investigating the disturbing staged accident on the Belt Parkway that went viral on TikTok — as experts said such insurance scams are on the rise in New York because fraudsters are “getting away with it.”
A police spokesperson said Tuesday that detectives have interviewed victim Ashpia Natasha about the caught-on-dash cam Oct. 16 crash, in which another driver reversed into her front bumper on the busy Queens highway just before several passengers spilled out and tried to claim they were hurt.
“The investigation remains ongoing by the NYPD Criminal Enterprise Investigation Unit’s Fraudulent Collision Investigation Squad,” a department spokesperson said in a brief statement.
Unfortunately, cases like Natasha’s are becoming more and more common as brazen crooks search for scams to run on unsuspecting victims — even old-school schemes like cutting someone off, slamming on the brakes and then squeezing them for insurance money afterward.
“It’s an ongoing trend, and the fraudsters are getting away with it,” Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit trade organization, told The Post on Tuesday.