A fraudster from Epsom who exploited victims’ inability to speak English to sell them “worthless” insurance policies and defraud them out of nearly £90,000 has been spared jail.

Renan Gomes, 28, of Adelphi Road, Epsom, had a 16 month prison sentence suspended for two years at Guildford Crown Court last week, and has to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, having pleaded guilty to fraud.

Between November 2013 and March 2015, Gomes set himself up as an unauthorised insurance broker, and took out polices on behalf of his customers who thought they were getting good deals on their car insurance.

In fact, Gomes was registering false details to get lower premiums and was leaving his customers completely uncovered.

Gomes set up 133 fraudulent policies during this period. Many of his customers were from the Portuguese community in Surrey.

The fraud was discovered when Liberty Insurance, the insurance company he took out policies with, noticed a high number of policies being set up using the same bank accounts – all of which belonged to Gomes.

Detectives at the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) subsequently linked 79 policies set up with Liberty to Gomes.

He was arrested at his home in March 2015.

Detectives found he was pocketing between £70 and £100 in fees from his unsuspecting victims for every policy he opened, making about £10,000 in total.

Detectives also found 133 payments from his accounts to insurers. Liberty Insurance estimated their total losses to be about £79,000.

He had pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud at Guildford Crown Court on May 3, and was sentenced at the court on Friday, May 20.

Detective Constable Eva Woods, from the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, said: “Gomes set himself up as an unauthorised insurance broker and sold policies that were absolutely worthless to people who often didn’t speak English.

“The warning here is if you get yourself insurance through an unlicensed broker like Gomes, then the likelihood is that you’ll be left without valid cover.

“You could end up having to foot a hefty bill yourself should you have an accident and you could also have your car seized by police if it’s on the road without valid insurance.

“Anyone looking for cheap car insurance deals from an insurance broker should make sure that broker is authorised with the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).”

A confiscation hearing has been set for September 1 at Guildford Crown Court.