Martin Evans, crime correspondent
A mother and son have been arrested for allegedly faking her death during a luxury holiday to Zanzibar in a plot to claim a £140,000 life insurance payout.
The pair, from Walsall in the West Midlands, claimed she had died in a car crash on the East African island in April last year and submitted a death certificate to her insurance company the following month.
But officials at the insurance company became suspicious when they examined the documents but could find no record of the death with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the local authorities.
They reported the matter to specialist fraud investigators based at the City of London Police, who launched an immediate investigation.
After making inquiries, the woman’s 19-year-old son was arrested and when he was questioned allegedly admitted that his mother was alive and well and living in Canada.
Police contacted the woman, who has not been named, and she agreed to return to the UK, where she was arrested by appointment at Perry Barr police station in Birmingham.
The woman was questioned by officers from the City of London’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, which specialises in tackling insurance fraud.
It is believed the pair planned to reunite in Canada once the payout had been received.
But a source said suspicions were aroused by the quality of the death certificate and subsequent inquiries failed to establish any record of a death of Briton in the East African country at the time in question.
Zanzibar, which lies off the coast of Tanzania, is a popular destination for holiday makers, with around 75,000 Britons visiting each year to enjoy its year round sun and palm fringed beaches.
The son’s 24-year-old guardian, who is a relative, was also questioned under caution and all three were released on bail until April.
In 2002 John Darwin, a former teacher from County Durham was reported missing by his wife, Anne, who claimed he had been last seen paddling out into the North Sea in his canoe.
His body was never found and Mrs Darwin collected his £25,000 life insurance.
It subsequently emerged that he had been secretly living in the house next door and after moving to Panama in 2006, they were eventually arrested and charged with fraud.
In July 2008 they were both sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Last July a woman admitted fraud and money laundering after continuing to pick up and spend her mother’s pension payments, three years after she died while in Las Vegas.
The Telegraph
