Jose Lantigua, a Florida-based businessman who once owned two Circle K furniture stores, suffered a fatal heart attack while vacationing in Venezuela, and was then cremated in the Latin American country - or at least that's what the reports said.
Two years later, Latingua was arrested – alive and well outside Asheville, North Carolina.
Insurers allege that this was all part of an elaborate scam to obtain millions of dollars from fraudulent life insurance policies.
The con began in 2013, when Latingua’s supposed death caused his businesses to close down and bury his estate in $8 million of debt, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal.
Before these incidents, however, Latingua had taken out $9 million worth of life insurance policies from seven separate insurers. One of those companies, Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Co., put forth a lawsuit in 2013 alleging that Latingua was not dead but had bribed Venezuelan officials to falsify cremation documents.
Lantigua’s son, in response, accused Hartford of falsifying its investigation into the matter and lying about Venezuelan officials revoking the death certificate.
He then attempted to have the case dismissed.
“In April, lawyers representing Lantigua's estate pushed to have the case thrown out (Hartford admitted a Venezuelan lawyer did alter documents to make it seem like the Venezuelan government nullified the death certificate, although they claim they had no knowledge of that fact). A judge ruled the papers were faked, but could not determine who faked them,” reports the Jacksonville Business Journal.
While there was once an arrest warrant issued for Lantigua, his wife was spared since it was unknown whether she knew if he was alive or not. She was arrested alongside her husband and currently awaits her fate in an East Florida jail.
