We are all aware of the style of Insurance Fraud that is seen in the movies, when someone endeavors to fake their own death in an effort to have somebody collect the insurance money. There are times when truth can be as strange as fiction, and this is the case for a family in Britain. John Darwin and his wife Anne and their story are proof of that.
The story starts about eight years ago when John Darwin was the apparent victim of a canoeing accident. He was reported missing back in 2000 and what followed was a search operation by both sea and air that cost an estimated £70,000. His body was never found, although searchers did find the wreckage of his small craft. Thirteen months later at an inquest, he was officially declared dead. Anne Darwin was the recipient of £25,000 paid from Unat Direct Insurance Management. John Darwin had taken out a policy on his own life for £50,000, but because no body was ever found, Mrs. Darwin was paid half of the death benefit. She was also the beneficiary of a mortgage life insurance plan that paid off the £130,000 mortgage that they owed on their home.
The story really starts to get interesting in December of 2007, when John Darwin shows up at a West London police station and explains to them that he may be the subject of a missing persons report. He claims that he had no recollection of the previous seven years. Of course the members of his family were initially ecstatic when they discovered that their father was alive when they believed he had tragically perished seven years before.
As it turns out, John Darwin was never lost at all. It came to be known that Darwin had actually been living in his house the entire time. He and his wife had concocted an elaborate plan to fake his death, and when people came to the house he simply left through a passage that led to a secret hideout. The Darwins had become mired in debt as a result of living an extravagant lifestyle, and they had owed many thousands of pounds to different entities. Despite owning a number of different properties, they had found themselves in a position where they desperately needed money and saw a way to get it.
The Darwins remain conflicted to this day about what the plan was eventually going to be, but the basic idea was that they would move to a different country once the dust had settled and start a new life, in part with the proceeds of the insurance money. Mrs. Darwin was actually in Panama at the time when John Darwin arrived at the police station in West London. She had already moved there and had sold off the properties that the couple had owned and transferred the money to offshore bank accounts.
It may remain a mystery for all time why the Darwins or at least John Darwin gave up on their plan after apparently succeeding. Now the Darwins face a number of charges and the penalties will not likely stop at having to pay back the money that they obtained from the insurance fraud. It seems that sometimes in the end, crime does not pay.