Son and mother allegedly fake latter's death in fraudulent S$3.7 million claims from CPF, insurance

SINGAPORE — She “died” in an accident in Peshawar, Pakistan on July 5 last year.

Later that month, her son allegedly submitted forged documents to four insurers claiming nearly S$3.7 million under seven insurance policies.

One of the insurers, AXA, detected irregularities in documents relating to Talat Farman’s purported death and lodged a police report on Nov 13 last year.

Officers from the Commercial Affairs Department arrested Talat’s son eight days later, and she was also subsequently nabbed.

Talat, 53, and her son Abraham Rock, 35, were charged in court on Friday (April 12) for faking her death in an attempt to obtain more than S$3.7 million in insurance and Central Provident Fund claims.

Talat faces five charges of conspiring to cheat.

Rock’s 11 charges include conspiring to cheat and giving false information to an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officer. He was also charged with making a false statutory declaration and fabricating evidence to be used in a judicial proceeding.

The Singaporean duo allegedly conspired with at least three other people — Sheikh Muhammad Kamran, Abdul Rahman Sheikh Muhammad Kamran and Sheikh Jawad Ahmed Reza. No further details on the three men were mentioned in court documents.

COPY OF BURIAL PLATE INVOICE SUBMITTED TO INSURER

The forged documents included a police report from the Bhana Mari police station in Peshawar, as well as a medical report and death certificate from Pakistan’s Lady Reading Hospital. There was even a copy of an invoice for a marble plate for Talat’s “burial”.

Rock submitted claims under two travel insurance policies, two personal accident policies and three life insurance policies including the Dependents’ Protection Scheme.

The three largest claims, each worth S$1 million, were for MSIG Insurance’s TravelEasy insurance policy, and for Great Eastern’s Great Protector personal accident policy and Prestige Term Plus life insurance policy.

According to court documents and the police, only their claims of S$49,000 from NTUC Income’s Dependents’ Protection Scheme and S$80,331 from Talat’s CPF account were paid out by the time AXA lodged its police report.

Mother and son will return to court on May 10 and are out on bail of S$15,000 each.

If convicted, each faces up to 10 years’ jail and a fine for conspiracy to cheat.

Rock could be jailed for up to seven years and fined, if convicted of making a false statutory declaration or providing false evidence.

For giving false information to a public servant, he could be jailed for up to a year and fined up to S$5,000 if convicted.

The police said they worked closely with insurers on this case.

“In our continuous effort to combat fraud, it is vital for all insurers to be proactive in detecting and reporting suspicious cases to the authorities,” added the police.

PREVIOUS FAKE DEATHS

The alleged bid by Talat and Rock to defraud insurers by faking a death is not the first.

In a high-profile scam first reported in July 2003, Gandaruban Subramaniam fled Singapore to escape from creditors after his rental-car business failed. In 1987, at the age of 39, he faked his death in Sri Lanka to claim over S$330,000 in insurance money.

The fraud was exposed in 2004 when a DNA test linked his child, born in 1996, to him. Gandaruban, his ex-wife and his brother were jailed for between one to three years for their roles.

In Sept 2008, a 44-year-old man was sentenced to 42 months’ jail for conspiring with his wife and others to cheat the Central Provident Fund Board and Great Eastern by faking his death in Indonesia.

Shamsul Bahri Lamoan, who “died” in 2006, later blew the whistle on himself to stop his Indonesian wife from getting more of his insurance money. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NAVENE ELANGOVAN