A total of 60 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty to being involved in one of the country's largest "cash for crash" scams.
The fraud was so bad that people living in Derwentside, County Durham, where the main players behind the scam were based, had to pay up to ?100 extra for their car insurance.
Police uncovered the scale of the fraud while investigating the activities of members of the Wright family, from Burnhope, who came to national prominence in 2009 when two local streets they had named after themselves were changed by officers in a bid to bolster public confidence.
Concerns over local organised crime led to a major investigation, named Operation Nacho, assisted by the Insurance Fraud Bureau and other agencies.
They looked at 1,800 accidents handled by two particular firms and swiftly identified 261 which looked suspicious. Investigators suspected some were entirely fictitious, some staged and some vastly exaggerated.
They identified 25 accidents which were considered to have the highest impact on the public, both financially and in terms of suspected organised crime involvement, and these were selected for detailed investigation.
Those 25 accidents alone resulted in more than ?514,000 being obtained for the claimants, though the real figure was estimated to be more than ?3 million.
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