Imagine someone burying a coffin filled with a mannequin or cow meat and bones in the hopes of collecting more than Kenyan Sh100 million on an insurance policy holder who never existed.
This is not fiction but reality in many countries and Kenya in particular. Insurance experts say the practice is common in Western Kenya.
"Funerals have given criminals a smooth avenue to loot from insurance firms," said a former life assurance manager: "The scam involves the normal buying of life insurance. In less than two years, however, the insured would fake their own deaths to get huge sums of money within a short time."
They buy death certificates or sometimes fake drownings, because it provides a plausible reason for the absence of a body.
The most bizarre manifestation of this movement growing in Kenya was in Vihiga County in 2011. A 32-year-old man forged death certificates, bought a burial plot, buried empty caskets and staged fake funerals to lend credibility to an insurance fraud scheme. The man, with his two accomplices, bought insurance policies for 'ghosts', killed them off on paper and then staged their funerals.
An insurance firm began investigating the claims, which saw the cartel exhume a casket filled with a plastic dummy and cow parts. They had prepared invoices claiming the fake funerals were held at three different cemetries, and twocompanies advanced funds to cover the phony costs, according to prosecutors. Read More
This is not fiction but reality in many countries and Kenya in particular. Insurance experts say the practice is common in Western Kenya.
"Funerals have given criminals a smooth avenue to loot from insurance firms," said a former life assurance manager: "The scam involves the normal buying of life insurance. In less than two years, however, the insured would fake their own deaths to get huge sums of money within a short time."
They buy death certificates or sometimes fake drownings, because it provides a plausible reason for the absence of a body.
The most bizarre manifestation of this movement growing in Kenya was in Vihiga County in 2011. A 32-year-old man forged death certificates, bought a burial plot, buried empty caskets and staged fake funerals to lend credibility to an insurance fraud scheme. The man, with his two accomplices, bought insurance policies for 'ghosts', killed them off on paper and then staged their funerals.
An insurance firm began investigating the claims, which saw the cartel exhume a casket filled with a plastic dummy and cow parts. They had prepared invoices claiming the fake funerals were held at three different cemetries, and twocompanies advanced funds to cover the phony costs, according to prosecutors. Read More
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