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Taiwanese man fakes death in China
FAILED SCAM:
The man, thought to be at large in China, obtained official certification of his death so that he could claim payments from his life insurance in Taiwan
By Jou Ying-cheng
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, May 23, 2001, Page 2
A Taiwanese man faked his death in China in a failed attempt to receive payments amounting to NT$86.1 million from life insurance policies he had bought in Taiwan, police said yesterday.
Hu Wen-chung (胡文忠), who allegedly conspired with Chinese officials to produce his false death certificate, is believed still at large in China according to the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Police said Hu, a businessman in the electrical appliance trade, bought life insurance policies from 10 different insurance companies between December 1999 and January last year. The combined payout -- with his son as the beneficiary -- would have totalled NT$86.1 million. Hu then travelled to China and arranged to "die" in a car crash in Hunan Province in April last year.
Hu's friend Hung Chang-ming (洪章明), an alleged accomplice in the case, brought back official documents from China to claim the insurance payments. According to Lin Te-hsing (林德興), deputy manager at the claims department of the China Life (中國人壽) insurance company, the documents said that the car accident took place at 10pm on April 3. They say Hu died in the hospital an hour later, and that his body was moved to a crematorium at 11:20pm that night and cremated the next day, even before Hu's family had identified the body.
The insurance companies found the circumstances surrounding Hu's reported death and cremation suspicious, as well as the timing, number and value of Hu's insurance purchases, Lin said. He said that the number of insurance policies Hu bought was unusually high and that insurance premiums were inconsistent with his income.
Besides, Lin said, Hu's family did not hold a funeral for him or bring his remains back to Taiwan.
Cooperating with their branches in China and the Chinese police, the insurance companies discovered that everything about Hu's death was false, Lin said.
According to the bureau, Hu, Hung and another Taiwanese businessman, Chiu Chih-hsun (邱志勛), conspired with Chinese hospital and crematorium officials to obtain the documents, which included a death certificate and a crematorium invoice.
Police arrested Chiu at Kaohsiung International Airport on April 21 and Hung in Hsinchu the next day. Chiu confessed to the crime while Hung has denied any involvement, according to police reports.
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