Chinese Doctors Arrested For Using Dead Cancer Patients to Get Insurance Money

A group of Chinese doctors has been busted for multiple instances of insurance fraud—using the cadavers of recently-deceased cancer patients to falsify traffic accidents—that allowed them to collect millions of yuan in ill-begotten compensation.

The state-run People’s Daily reported on May 19 that several doctors working at the Biling County People’s Hospital in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui were suspected of taking part in the crime ring.

Since May 2011, a doctor surnamed Yang began work looking after terminal cancer patients at the behest of Wang, who then served as director of the hospital’s Medical Insurance Department.

Together, the two men encouraged patients to buy expensive insurance plans. When the patient in question died, Yang would arrange an auto accident in collusion with his family members. Two other doctors, surnamed Ning and Li, would rush to the scene of the “accident” and pretend to provide “intensive care” to the deceased patient, whose body Yang used as a prop.

Related Coverage

A Corrupt Chinese Doctor Embezzled $160 Million

Chinese Doctors Pose for Pictures During Surgery

Yang would then file a death report and undertake the necessary procedures to exact compensation from insurance companies. He and his accomplices set up 42 such fake cases using dead cancer patients, according to the People’s Daily report. Of these, 25 were successful, earning the doctors around 3 million yuan (about $480,000) in paid and scheduled insurance dues.

The group was exposed this January when the local public security bureau received several reports of suspected fraud from insurance companies, including five involving Yang.

Investigation revealed that Yang had been in frequent contact with the drivers of the vehicles involved in many of the accidents, and that they were all his relatives.

Seven suspects were arrested and put under criminal detention, People’s Daily reported.