$20,000 False Claims in St. Petersburg

The Prosecutor’s Office has charged five St. Petersburg residents with filing false claims and defrauding two car insurance companies after a May 2004 two-car wreck in Pinellas Park, Fla.

Zlatan Ramic, Alija Boskovic, Safet Beganovic, Ferida Beganovic and Izet Beganovic are accused of filing more than $20,000 in claims, according to court documents published in the Tampa Tribune. Investigators found discrepancies in the reports. Some defendants filed for lost wages but were not employed.

According to the documents, the occupants of one of the vehicles said they did not know the occupants of the other, but investigators found some of them were born in the same town in Bosnia and lived within a few blocks of one another in the United States.