A British businessman has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after he faked his own death from “brain fever” and even claimed to have been cremated in attempt to make a $1.8m life insurance claim.
Sanjay Kumar even roped in his wife for the crime, committed in 2011. He claimed to have been taken ill while on a trip to India. When he returned to the UK, under a fake name in August 2012, he thought insurers Aviva and Scottish Provident would pay out his $1.8m claim, according to the International Business Times.
Insurers paid out $19,169 but suspicious of Kumar, they did some digging and found Kumar had not been ill in India – far from it, in fact – and had obtained a fake death certificate.
Scottish Provident handed the case over to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Department, who discovered Kumar was in significant financial debt and under pressure to pay it off.
Judge David Higgins, sentencing Kumar in London’s Southwark Crown Court, branded the couple’s behaviour “routinely deplorable and deeply anti-social”.
