Vietnamese woman cuts off arm, foot for insurance

HANOI, Vietnam, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A woman in Vietnam paid a friend to cut off her foot and part of her arm so she could collect an insurance payout, police said.

The 30-year-old woman, known as "Ly Thi N" admitted to paying the friend $2,200 to chop off the two limbs and claim she'd been struck by a train, reported the People's Police Newspaper of Vietnam. The insurance pay off would have been $150,000.

The police uncovered the scam after a three-month investigation. The woman's business was reportedly struggling.

The friend, known as "Doan Van D," posed as a bystander last May who found her by the railroad track and called an ambulance.

"N hired D to cut her hand and foot, then continued to have him report false information to the police," Bac Tu Liem police chief, Nguyen Thanh Tung, told the Tuoi Tre newspaper on Tuesday.

Tung, who said the case was the first of its kind he'd seen sent "a warning that people should not attempt insurance fraud at the expense of their own health."