A MAN, who faked his own death in an ‘diabolical conspiracy’ to claim life insurance worth $500,000 (BD188,500), has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The 44-year-old Pakistani defendant was found guilty of forging a death certificate, along with his 46-year-old accomplice-brother, who was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The High Criminal Court yesterday also sentenced the first defendant’s wife to a year behind bars, for falsely reporting his death and then trying to collect the insurance money.
The scheme was reportedly a plan by the Pakistani to exact revenge on his former employer, an insurance firm, which had not paid his wages for more than six months.
The plot was unravelled when the insurance firm hired detectives from a world-famous American agency, Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, to find out if the man had really died.
Judges yesterday described the plot as ‘devilish’ and stated that the suspects “wove a diabolical conspiracy with great cunning”.
“The defendants thought their scheme was air-tight, and that the law would not catch up with them when they tried to blot out the hallmarks of their crime,” read the verdict.
“Their actions are a blatant reflection of minds sickened with duplicity and deception, transgressing on values and laws in a failed attempt to take money that they have no right to.
“It was a scheme orchestrated with extreme precision, planned for with devilish rigour and executed by individuals who have no fear of the law.”
Detectives trekked to the man’s hometown in Karachi and interviewed his sons, neighbours, local gravediggers and a mosque imam, and concluded that the ‘dead man’ was in fact alive.
The verdict recounted how the older brother obtained forged documents and arranged for their authentication by official bodies “to make the death appear as an indisputable fact”.
It added that the wife falsely claimed her husband had died of a heart attack at home in Karachi, and that the Pakistani authorities took her word for it. She then returned to Bahrain to execute the final part of the plan.
The wife used the verified certificate to lodge the claim with the European insurer and raised a lawsuit in court, going so far as to obtain a court order that she should be awarded the money.
“The death certificate was issued with no supporting paperwork, no autopsy was conducted, and none of the suspect’s family members attended his burial or funeral.
“After the Pinkertons exposed the lie, the man was found alive and well. After he was arrested by Pakistani police he confessed to the whole plot on video.”
On top of the prison sentences, the court fined the trio BD2,000, and judges asked the brothers to pay temporary damages to the insurance company.
The court also ordered to deport the couple back to Pakistan after completing their sentences. The brother will remain in Bahrain as he has become a citizen.
The GDN earlier reported that a third brother had appeared before judges in court, claiming that the 44-year-old defendant had died.
Court documents stated that in April 2023, the 44-year-old visited the insurer’s headquarters to obtain a life insurance policy, with his wife as the beneficiary.
Four months after the policy was purchased, the insurance agent received a letter from an intermediary firm stating that the man had died – with two documents attached, including a death certificate.
Copies of the authenticated death certificate were attached to the case files, with official stamps from Bahrain’s
Foreign Ministry and the consulate in Karachi, and the Pakistani Embassy.
The attempted fraud came to light as the insurance company ‘sensed something suspicious’ about the claim and hired private investigators to ‘get to the bottom of the matter’.
Pinkerton, in its report, found that as of March 2024, six months after the supposed death of the defendant, neighbours said that he was very much alive.
“As per Pinkerton, the defendant’s wife had notified authorities about his death, specifying that he died of a heart attack, but no autopsy was conducted,” prosecutors summarised.
“Upon inquiry, one of the defendant’s sons said he did not know the grave’s exact location as he did not attend the funeral.
“His other son, who signed the death certificate as a witness, appeared anxious when asked about his father, and claimed that he also did not know where the grave was.
“He told detectives that the defendant was buried in Manghopir Cemetery, located 7km from his home, even though there were two cemeteries closer to where he lived.”
The imam of the local mosque was asked about the supposed death and remarked that a funeral prayer would have been held to honour the man’s body, had he died in the area.
Detectives then went to the cemetery, and a graveyard manager stated that he had not come across the man’s name, while a gravedigger said he did not recall burying such an individual.
A Pakistani legal aide, working at the insurer’s office in Karachi, was asked to look into the death, and he went to the police to inquire about the man’s status.
He claimed the authorities’ database showed that the defendant had just signed a lease for a property in the city, and waited outside his apartment with the police, and he was arrested.
He admitted to the accusations, and confessed to bribing a government employee in Pakistan to help him with his plan, and further promised him a percentage of the proceeds once the plan was successfully executed.
Meanwhile, the Bahrain-based brother had been overheard by co-workers suggesting to others to commit life insurance fraud, and bragging that he has pulled it off successfully.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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