Japanese man arrested for falsifying death certificate to US$5.6 million claim insurance

BANGKOK: -- A Japanese businessman was arrested for having a death certificate forged to claim life insurance, worth about Bt185 million (over US$5.6 million), Thai Immigration Bureau's Deputy Commissioner Pol Maj Gen Pongdech Chaiyaprawat told a press briefing on Friday.

Ichiro Ogushi, a 35-year-old Japanese national, was detained at his home in Din Daeng after immigration police alerted by the Japanese embassy in Bangkok to investigate and follow up the death of Mr Ogushi who reportedly unusually died of heart failure.

Mr Ogushi purchased life insurance with a face value of over $5.6 million (500 million yen) in Japan before flying to Thailand on November 19, 2009 to hire someone to fabricate a falsified death certificate.

However, the Japanese embassy in Bangkok suspected that he might not have died and that the death certificate is fake document.

The detainee said that he ran currency exchange and exports businesses but that he faced losses. So he and his business partners conspired to buy life insurance for Mr Ogushi, intending to claim insurance worth over $5.6 million.

Then he left for Thailand and hired Pattapong Sukantee who claimed to be a member of a mafia gang in Silom Road's Patpong nightlife area to forge the death certificate and to provide the ashes and urn.

Mr Pattapong and Sumika Tomiyasu, a Japanese tour agent in Thailand, then took the ashes, an urn and counterfeited the death certificate to report to the tourist police for filling Mr Ogushi's death in a daily log record and later submitted the document to the embassy.

The embassy declined to issue an official Japanese official document certifying his death as it found that the death certificate submitted by Mr Sukantee and Ms Tomiyasu was falsified. In addition, the DNA testing identified that the ashes did not match to Mr Ogush's DNA..

Mr Ogushi failed to escape from Thailand and return to Japan. Under Thai law, he currently is charged with overstaying the limited period approved in a tourist visa.

Immigration police will compile and submit all evidence and documents to the embassy for further investigation and extradition. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2010-08-06

Talk about a plan doomed to failure from the start. Wonder what they put in the urn? If its follows the rest of the script, they probably cremated a soi dog for the ash source. He will be popular in prison when asked why he is in? And he answers, a blunder or two.

If you are going to do it , at least do it properly ! Ie where is the police report to state he died ?

Was this guy on hallucinogenics?

Couldn't even make this story up in a Woody Allen film.