Vietnam: Woman fakes her death to cheat insurance companies
Nguyen Thi Thu, 41, pulled off an insurance scam by pretending to die and collecting over VND1.28 billion (about ₹40 lakh) from four life insurance policies.
After staging her own death in 2020 with help from her mother, she lived without official legal status for years.
The whole scheme unraveled when she tried to cancel her own death certificate in December 2024.
How the fraud was carried out and what happened next
Thu took sleeping pills and injured herself to look dead, while her mother quickly organized a funeral and registered the "death."
Thu then disappeared to another province while living without official legal status, as her mother filed claims through family members.
Investigators caught on after Thu's visit to cancel the certificate; they found records of payouts from two major insurers.
Both Thu and her mother are now detained and facing charges for insurance fraud under Vietnamese law.