MANILA, Nov. 2 -- Philippine police filed charges Thursday against a Japanese businessman who was allegedly involved in a multi- million dollar life insurance fraud. The Criminal Investigation Command said Takashi Mori, 47, and his son Ritsu, 20, falsified public documents to enable Mori to fake his death so his family could collect on his $6.5 million life insurance money.
Investigations chief Samuel Pagdilao said that last year Mori paid two homicide division officials at a Manila police headquarters 250,000 pesos ($9,600) to issue a death certificate for him. The certificate and a fake autopsy report saying Mori drowned were issued on Jan. 9. The body of a man recovered from Manila Bay was recovered later and identified by Ritsu as his father's. The body was immediately cremated and sent to Japan where Mori's relatives made the initial insurance claims. But the Japanese Embassy in Manila asked investigators to verify Mori's death after learning that his relatives in the Philippines cremated the body without notifying embassy personnel. Police arrested Mori last month in the house of his Filipina daughter-in-law in suburban Valenzuela.
