LAWRENCE JENKINS/DMN

Damaged vehicles were purchased, they were then titled out of state.

Car accidents are a pain for most of us but for some they can be big business.

Today federal agents announced success in cracking a sophisticated insurance fraud scheme.

Take a look at any street, and you would think cars are there for transportation.

But the U.S. attorney this morning revealed a scheme where all the cars involved were made simply for fraud.

The U.S. attorney's office, the FBI and U.S. postal officials have been investigating this case.

They say these crimes involved at least 22 people.

It was a very complicated scheme. Damaged vehicles were purchased, they were then titled out of state.

Then they staged accidents with those retitled automobiles and then submitted phony insurance claims.

"We saw that there was a nexus of people in the indictment that participated together commonly in painting these vehicles, and retitling them, so that they would be worth more money, then bringing them in and committing insurance fraud," said Richard Roper, U.S. attorney.

This involved hundreds of thousands of dollars. The investigation is still ongoing.

E-mail bharris@wfaa.com.