Durban - A KwaZulu-Natal teacher has been arrested for alleged insurance fraud amounting to R6 million.
The 44-year-old teacher, of eMadadeni Township, near Newcastle, was arrested after an investigation by the Durban Commercial Crime Unit.
Police investigations revealed that the teacher would take out funeral policies for people who were already dead. In the latest incident, he was alleged to have taken out cover and claimed R15 000, eight months after Themba Nene had died.
Police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, said that Nene had died in 2011, and not in October, as stated in the claim forms.
Zwane said that police pounced on the teacher while he was at school on Thursday afternoon.
“The suspect was linked to a case of insurance fraud in which R6m was claimed from a major insurance company,” said Zwane.
The teacher was expected to appear in the Durban Commercial Crime Court on fraud charges today.
Earlier this month, police arrested four suspects, including an employee at a funeral parlour and a taxi owner, who were linked to the Nene case.
The funeral parlour employee and another man had been the claimants of the policy payout, and received R3m, said Zwane.
During the investigations, Zwane said, it emerged that the Nene family had been told by the funeral parlour owner that they could not register his death at the Department of Home Affairs because his ID was missing.
Meanwhile, it was alleged, the owner had used it to take out life cover for the already dead Nene.
After the arrest of the four suspects, the owner of the funeral parlour was found dead with gunshot wounds in the Besters area near Ladysmith.
Zwane said police were investigating whether the murder was linked to the insurance fraud case.
The teacher’s arrest came on the same day that three people, who were running an insurance scam using dead bodies to get insurance payouts, were found guilty of murder by the Durban High Court.
The trio were charged with killing people, stealing identity documents, planting information on their corpses and then claiming from life insurance companies.
Police have linked them to the bodies of eight people who had been murdered, or had died in car accidents.
Notes were found on each corpse that deliberately led police to the trio, who then claimed they were relatives so they could claim the life insurance and funeral benefits.
Daily News