Here is a fraud case of a young Taiwanese man who was able to convince his friend to amputate his feet to obtain the insurance amount, which exceeds one million dollars illegally. According to a report in Business Insider, Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau reported that the 23-year-old college student, identified as Zhang, forced himself to undergo a double amputation after placing his feet in a bucket of dry ice for more than 10 hours. Which caused him to suffer what is known as frostbite, to defraud the insurance company.
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Investigators said it was Zhang’s friend Liao who encouraged him to do so, tricking him into signing a legal document requiring Zhang to pay approximately $800,000. He also told him that some gangsters were following him.
Dry Ice Fraud
The prosecution explained that Zhang had applied for life, health, and accident insurance before deliberately amputating his feet, with insurance policies totaling $1.3 million.
The events of the crime began when both young men went to one of their private apartments, where Zhang soaked his feet in a plastic bucket filled with dry ice for approximately 10 hours.
As a result, he suffered frostbite, and the two young men immediately went to the hospital. Liao claimed that his friend was injured while riding the motorcycle, as if the whole thing was just an accident.
According to the statement issued by the Bureau of Investigation, the medical staff said: Although the patient’s foot was exposed to frostbite; This required him to undergo an amputation of the lower calves, but the wounds and injuries appear “clean and symmetrical” and “there are no socks or shoe prints”, which hides a kind of falsity and mystery behind the incident.
The Nature of The Circumstances Was Not in Favor of The Plan
The fraud scheme was not completed due to the scarcity of extreme cold in Taiwan
The statement also stated that Taiwan is a subtropical region where the cold, especially at the time of the accident, does not reach the point of freezing, and it has never been heard of a person suffering from severe frostbite that required limb amputation due to exposure to the cold.
The police were able to arrest the two young men, and the authorities charged them with fraud and aiding and abetting serious injury.
Investigations revealed that police officers found the plastic bucket used to freeze Zhang’s feet, insurance papers, a white polystyrene box containing dry ice, eight mobile phones, and other electronic devices.
Zhang received one security payment of $7,200, but it will be forfeited, authorities said. Insurance companies canceled other claims submitted after the incident; Due to the short period between requesting receipt of documents and submitting them.
It is noteworthy that cold bite, or what is known as frostbite, is an injury resulting from the freezing of the skin and the tissues underneath it.
The severity of frostbite ranges from simply freezing the superficial layers of the skin to freezing the joints and changing the color of the skin to black. Which indicates the death of tissues in the area exposed to low temperature. The solution in this case is to amputate the affected part.
Source: Business Insider
