Two women from the Black Country are facing jail terms after admitting involvement in a con to make bogus insurance claims for fictional car crashes.

Kiranjit Mand, aged 31, and Mati Irannezhad, aged 49, were among eight people to be hauled before the courts for their part in the elaborate frauds.

Mand, of Pottery Road, Oldbury, and Irannezhad, of Barney Close, Tipton, both pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by false representation at Leicester Crown Court. It follows the outcome of other trials this week.

The guilty pleas can only now be reported after other gang members were dealt with. The court heard how the gang of five men and three women scammed tens of thousands of pounds from insurance companies by lodging fraudulent claims.

Four incidents were reported — two in Birmingham and two in Leicester — but only one was proved to have happened and the claim was exaggerated.

The investigation began in 2008 when police learned 37-year-old Hooman Jaffari, from Leicester, was planning to claim for a fictional road collision. Enquiries led officers to a fraudulent claims company owned by Jaffari in Birmingham, called Accident Experts Limited.

Jaffari acted as the intermediary between the supposed claimants and a claims company based in Lancashire, which was unaware of the fraudulent nature of the collisions.

Prosecutors said Jaffari managed to earn approximately £36,000 in commission through the scam and the total amount of money defrauded was almost £50,000. All eight members of the gang will be sentenced at a date to be confirmed, expected to be late next month.

Speaking outside court, Det Con Dave Jackson, of Leicestershire Police, said: “This two-year investigation was incredibly complex because of the large number of people involved. Without it the defendants could have gained tens of thousands of pounds of compensation.

“Jaffari set up three of the collisions and gained the most from the scam but all defendants had their part to play.”

The other people involved come from Leicester, Doncaster, Leeds and Manchester, and range in age from 38 to 46 years old.