By Lana Clements

A man who attempted to swindle his home insurance provider out of £29,000 with a botched grand plan has been caught out.

Living in Newport, Wales, the fraudster has been arrested after being accused of staging a burglary within his home. He had reported a hefty claim that included electrical goods and jewellery.

The arrest was made by the newly set up Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) within the City of London Police, which is being funded by the insurance industry. Fraud is a big problem for the industry costing billions of pounds each year, and adds to the premiums of innocent customers.

The department has been in operation for around two weeks and is tasked with tackling fraud within home, motor and other types of insurance. Since opening, the department acted on the staged burglary, as well as a motor insurance scam that issued fake policies.

The IFED also arrested a man who had been claiming for a back injury since 2005 that had apparently left him unable to work and a motorist who claimed his £35,000 BMW had been stolen but was found with the car still in his possession.

Heading up the IFED, detective chief inspector Dave Wood says: "We wanted to make an immediate impact and put out a clear statement of intent, and that is exactly what we have done.

"In two weeks we have travelled far and wide to dismantle organised insurance fraud and tackle opportunistic insurance fraud. The challenge for us is to maintain this very high level of performance."