Photo: VCG

 

A man from Northeast China's Liaoning Province has been arrested and prosecuted for his attempt to cheat a maximum insurance amount of 25.9 million yuan ($3.97 million) by murdering his wife through a deliberate traffic accident, the local police announced on Tuesday.

The man surnamed Zhou was driving his wife surnamed Yan on the Beijing-Shenyang Highway, heading toward Beijing for the Spring Festival holiday on January 27, 2018, when the traffic accident happened in Jinzhou of Liaoning.

Zhou was seriously injured and went into a coma while Yan died on the spot after their car hit the guardrail of the road.

However, police discovered several doubtful points about the case, including that there was no sign that Zhou slammed on the brakes before the accident happened and forensic tests on Yan showed there were two kinds of psychotropic medicine ingredients which could not be taken at the same time in her stomach.

Through further investigations, the police found that Zhou had purchased huge amounts of personal accident injury insurances with the total maximum insurance amount as much as 25.9 million yuan since April 2016. The annual premium amounted to 85,000 yuan and Zhou was the only beneficiary. 

He also purchased through the Internet a drug that could put people into a coma, the ingredients of which the police later found matching the ingredients found in Yan's autopsy.

Besides, Zhou had already received 58,000 yuan through his insurance after a car crash on September 19, 2017, in which Yan survived.

After two years' treatment, Zhou's physical condition gradually stabilized and he was arrested by the police in March.

Zhou confessed to the police that he and Yan did not have a stable income after they got married and his debts totaled about 6 million yuan after he took out loans from loan companies and banks after his failed stock investment, before he carefully planned and caused the accident.

Global Times