Some people are so eager to claim on their life insurance policies
that they just can’t wait until their deaths. It seldom ends well for
the fraudsters. Here are 10 things it’s wise not to do when you are supposedly dead Shopping: not a good idea when you’ve declared yourself dead.
1. Visit the doctorBritish resident Ahmad
Akhtary was declared dead in 2006 when visiting his birthplace of
Afghanistan, and his wife submitted a £300,000 life insurance claim.
Suspicions were raised by the local doctor, when the dead man, making no
attempt to hide his identity, called in for a checkup six months later.
2. Use a discount cardSurrey resident and HMV
employee Alfredo Sanchez “died” in Ecuador in 2005, whereupon his wife
and four children received a payment of £112,000. Despite the windfall,
the ex-HMV employee continued to use his staff discount card.
Investigators’ suspicions were confirmed when Sanchez’s fingerprints
were found on his own cremation form.
3. Submit a fresh insurance claimDorothy Johnson
supposedly died in the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, for
which her daughter claimed $135,000. Strange, then, that Johnson
submitted a car insurance claim 12 days after her death. Her
fingerprints, too, were later found on the death claim form.
4. Change sexWhen Texan mother Molly Daniels
reported her husband dead and burned beyond recognition in a horrific
car crash in 2004, and claimed $110,000, investigators were suspicious:
she was strangely calm, there were no skidmarks on the road, and the
fire had seemingly been started with lighter fluid. The clincher,
though, was that the body was a woman’s – an 81-year-old had been dug up
from her grave, dressed in a baseball cap, and placed in the driver’s
seat.
5. Time-travelFrom 1995 to 1997, Raul Pero took
out $2m in life insurance policies, then promptly expired – that is, his
roommate presented a death certificate from Chile. Strangely, the death
date listed on it was the day after she contacted the insurers. Pero’s grave was then dug up and his coffin found to be full of rocks.
6. Get arrested for speedingFour days after his
supposed death by drowning off Long Island in 2012, which would have
given his wife and son a $410,000 payout, Raymond Roth was pulled over
for speeding at 90mph in South Carolina, giving new meaning to “the
quick and the dead”.
7. Pay for a boob jobIt’s amazing what lengths
some people will go to for a bigger bust. When in Moscow for his wife’s
£43,000 breast enlargement operation, British counsellor and budding
property tycoon Stephen Kellaway bribed a mortuary attendant to name a
tramp’s corpse as his. The scam was discovered and he was arrested in
Thailand in 2011 before his wife could claim the £1.7m policy.
8. Forget that you are deadProbably the most
celebrated of all life insurance frauds was John Darwin, who was
pronounced dead after disappearing on a canoeing trip in 2002, giving
his wife a £250,000 payout. Five years later, tired of being on the run,
he turned up at a London police station and pretended he’d had amnesia.
A photo was then found of him and his wife living it up in Panama.
9. Collect moneyAnju Kumar told insurers her
husband Sanjay had died of brain fever in India, and tried to claim
£1.1m. Strange, then, that Sanjay was able to pick up a Western Union
transfer of £1,500 from his wife two days after that. Text messages
planning the fraud were subsequently found on Anju’s mobile phone.
10. Call the policeAs an attorney, William
Grothe could be expected to come up with the most cunning plan. Then
again, maybe not. He left his car and belongings where they would be
found, holed up in a hotel room under his wife’s maiden name, and phoned
the police claiming to be William Grothe’s murderer. Already made
suspicious by the carefully placed trail of belongings, police matched
the voice with the answer message on Grothe’s mobile phone.
