INSURANCE SWINDLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 16 June 1932, Page 7

INSURANCE SWINDLE

DUMMY CORPSE BURIED (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, 14th June. A Lyons message states that Durand was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment as the accomplice of the young woman, Jeanne Piolat, who Was a beneficiary tinder the insurance policy. She was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. A cable message dated London, 23rd December, stated: “Police inquiries at Lyons disclosed an arduous but successful insurance fraud. The orjgnator insured his life for £15,000. He then took a huge dose of quinine, producing symptons convincing his doctor, that he had brain fever. Next day his mistress anounced his demise and secured a deatli certificate. The imposter was carefully made up to represent a corpse; and lay in a pallid state the entire day in the midst of mourning friends and relatives, who left before the undertakers arrived. The swindler hid in a cupboard while the coffin containing sand was removed and reverently buried. The swindler and his mistress bought a farm on the proceeds of the insurance and would have lived happily ever after had not a former friend recognised the ‘corpse’. 1 The exhumation of the dummy corpse in Algiers cemetry confirmed the confession of Louis Durand.