A 56-year-old German man who tried to fake his death in a staged boating accident on the Baltic Sea has been sentenced to more than three years in prison.
The sentence came after being convicted of 14 counts of attempted insurance fraud.
The man’s wife, meanwhile, was sentenced to two years’ probation on Wednesday for her role in the scheme.
The couple allegedly faked the man’s death in a boating accident in the Bay of Kiel in October 2019 in a bid to collect ransom.
Fake death man planned to collect about €4 million ($4.4 million) in life and accident insurance payouts.
After staging the man’s supposed death, the couple hid out for months, first in Hamburg and then in the central German town of Schwarmstedt.
Police finally tracked the man down during a raid in May 2020, spotting his wedding ring flashing in the light from a flash light as he tried to hide behind boxes.
The couple were previously convicted in the case after a trial in February 2021, but an appeals court later ordered new proceedings on additional allegations of attempted fraud against other insurance companies.
The presiding judge at the Kiel Regional Court in northern Germany, Johann Kümmel, said on Wednesday.
He said that letters proved the couple’s intention to “get their money as quickly as possible from as many insurance companies as possible.’’
Three days after the supposed accident, the man’s wife reported her husband missing.
But the police quickly became suspicious.
An expert found that the boat had been tampered with, causing it to sink.
The life insurance companies also refused to pay out the policies with only the initial death report.
It insisted that instead of a formal death certificate or confirmation of the man’s death from a local court, a process that takes at least six months.
The man’s 13 life and accident insurance policies were not paid out.
“The crime was so amateurishly planned,’’ the public prosecutor told the court.
The defendants confessed to carrying out the scheme but asked for acquittal on the attempted insurance fraud charges.
“From today’s perspective, the whole thing seems totally insane,’’ the man explained in a statement to the court that cited financial struggles as his motive.
He said he wanted to leave Germany and go into hiding in the United States.
Both defendants apologised for their actions.
“I allowed myself to be drawn into something that I couldn’t fully see or understand,’’ the woman said.
dpa/NAN