10-year sentence in insurance scam upheld

TDT | Manama

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

The First High Criminal Court of Appeal upheld a 10-year prison sentence against a defendant convicted, along with his brother, of orchestrating a sophisticated scheme to fraudulently obtain $500,000 from an insurance company.

The plan involved the defendant taking out a life insurance policy in favor of his wife, who later filed a claim falsely reporting his death in an Asian country.

Before the payout was released, the company discovered that the man was still alive and residing abroad.

The court also sentenced the wife to one year in prison for her role in the crime.

According to case records, a Gulf-based insurance company reported that the first defendant applied for a life insurance policy in April 2023 worth $500,000 in favor of his wife.

Four months later, the company received a claim from the wife alleging that her husband had died overseas.

She filed a civil lawsuit and presented documents—including a court ruling and a death certificate—supporting her claim.

However, suspicions raised by the insurance broker prompted further verification, revealing that the death certificate was forged and the insured man was still alive.

Following an order from the Public Prosecution, security investigations confirmed through confidential sources that the defendant was alive and that the fraud was coordinated with his wife (the third defendant) and his brother (the second defendant).

The wife had used forged documents to file the claim despite knowing her husband was still living abroad.

The Public Prosecution’s investigation found that the forged death certificate had been issued in the foreign country. Local relatives confirmed the man’s presence there, and the foreign embassy in Bahrain verified the forgery.