A FAMILY who conspired to fake a mother’s death and cash in on £140,000 in life insurance payouts have been sentenced.
Arafa Nassib, 47, and her son Adil Kasim, 18, both of Lower Rushall Street, Walsall, claimed that the former had died in a car crash in Zanzibar in April 2016.
But the case was referred to the City of London Police’s insurance fraud enforcement department (IFED) by insurance company Scottish Widows in November of that same year after it became suspicious of the documentation Kasim had provided when he tried to make a claim against his mother’s life insurance policy.
In it, a death certificate said that Nassib had passed away at the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital following a road traffic accident.
However, it was later established that she had not been at the hospital, nor had she been treated by the doctor who Kasim had named in an accompanying life insurance questionnaire.
It was discovered that the death certificate and road traffic accident reports provided in order to make the claim were falsified.
The Zanzibar death registry office also confirmed that Nassib was not buried at the location claimed, and officers soon identified that she had made her way to Birmingham on 6 May 2016.
On this day, she used her mobile to make a number of calls to her son.
Kasim was arrested on 22 December 2016 and upon being taken into custody officers seized a number of items, including a mobile phone, a passport, and flight
tickets.
Whilst being interviewed, Kasim admitted that he and his mother had planned the elaborate con together, and that Nassib was now living in Canada to avoid detection.
He described their plan for Nassib to go to Zanzibar to visit family and when she was out there to obtain the necessary documents to falsify her death.
Officers made contact with Nassib whilst she was in Canada and she returned to
the UK on 8 February 2017 when she was arrested by detectives from the City of London Police force.
During her interview, Nassib said that she was in debt, which was “getting hard to manage and causing her stress”.
She admitted knowing her death had been fraudulently reported to the government in Zanzibar when she was there in April the previous year. No money was paid out in relation to the claim.
Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, the officer in charge of the case, said:
“Nassib and Kasim exploited the insurance industry for their own monetary gain, going to great lengths to try and avoid detection.
Nassib moved her entire life abroad simply to try and avoid the consequences of faking her own death. Today’s case shows that those who commit insurance fraud will be caught and put before the courts.
Our extensive work with the insurers in this case has led us to a successful conviction, and these unremorseful fraudsters have finally been brought to justice.”
Faced with charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, Nassib was sentenced to 12 months behind bars, while Kasim was handed a year-long community order.
