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    Case study · Insurance fraud

    International Insurance Fraud Investigation: Cross-Border Evidence Collection Across the EU

    How Exero Group documented a coordinated €2.4M staged-loss scheme spanning five EU member states, lawfully, proportionately, and to a standard insurers could rely on in court.

    The assignment

    A European insurer engaged us after a cluster of high-value property and liability claims, totalling approximately €2.4 million, showed recurring indicators of staging: identical loss narratives, related claimants, and repair invoices from shell companies. The claims originated in one member state, but the underlying activity touched five. The insurer needed evidence collected lawfully in each jurisdiction, documented to a chain-of-custody standard, and usable in both civil recovery and criminal referral.

    The challenge

    • Evidence and witnesses were spread across five EU member states with different privacy, surveillance and data-protection rules.
    • The suspected network used shell companies, nominee directors and short-lived addresses to break the paper trail.
    • Any misstep in collection could render the evidence inadmissible, or expose the insurer to GDPR liability.

    How we worked

    A single case manager in Prague coordinated local, licensed investigators in each country. Every task was scoped against the local legal framework before work began.

    Registry & OSINT research

    Corporate registries, land registers, insolvency filings and open-source intelligence in all five jurisdictions to map the network and its beneficial owners.

    Cross-border coordination

    Standardised tasking, reporting templates and evidence-handling procedures so that findings from every country could be compared and combined.

    GDPR & proportionality

    Documented legitimate-interest balancing tests for each processing activity; surveillance only where lawful, necessary and proportionate.

    Chain of custody

    Timestamped, signed observation reports and forensically sound digital captures, prepared for use in civil proceedings and criminal referral.

    The outcome

    Within ten weeks we delivered a consolidated evidential file that linked the claimants, the repair companies and two organisers through financial, corporate and physical evidence. The insurer declined the claims, initiated civil recovery, and referred the matter to the competent authorities. Several linked claims were withdrawn shortly after the first round of evidence was presented.

    • €2.4M in suspected staged claims declined or withdrawn
    • 5 EU jurisdictions covered by a single coordinated team
    • Court-ready reports accepted by counsel without challenge to admissibility

    Details have been altered to protect client confidentiality. The case study illustrates our methodology; it does not describe any identifiable party.

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