Thornhill, Ontario--September 3, 2010--Winnipeg police recently laid organized crime-related charges against the accused masterminds of the province's largest insurance fraud ring ever.

Five people have been charged in total.

A little more than a year ago police broke up the ring with the help of Manitoba Public Insurance's fraud squad. Thirty-five people have since been charged in connection with the scheme, which allegedly netted $800,000 in fraudulent claims.

The suspects in the ring are accused of buying out-of-province luxury vehicles, rolling back their odometers to artificially raise their values and then--among other things--staging accidents in order to collect the money when MPI wrote the vehicles off.

Police believe the frauds date back to 2005.

See full coverage at the Winnipeg Sun.