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Vietnamese Woman, Who Claimed To Have Been Hit By Train, Paid To Have Hand, Foot Cut Off In A Scheme To Collect Insurance Money

By Angelica N. Sumter
Published on: 12:41 PST, Aug 25, 2016

A Vietnamese woman who claimed to have been dismembered after being hit by a train admitted to authorities that she actually paid a friend to cut off her hand and foot to collect the insurance money, according to the International Business Times.

According to reports on May 5 this year, a man named Doan Van D was walking near a railway in Hanoi when he discovered a 30-year-old woman, who is being identified as Ly Thi N, laying injured.

The man quickly called 911 and informed them that a woman, who he claimed he didn’t know, was seriously injured after being hit by a train.

When emergency responders arrived at the scene, they soon realized that the woman’s hands and foot had been mutilated.

Paramedics rushed the victim to a local hospital, where doctors stated that “it would be impossible to reattach her limbs.”

Doctors rushed Ly Thi N into surgery to have her hand and foot amputated.

Meanwhile, authorities were investigating the incident and soon discovered that the woman’s injuries were not caused after being hit by the train.

Three months after the train incident, the woman was taken to the police station for questioning and while there, she confessed to conjuring a scheme with her friend to collect insurance money.

She went on to say that the man, who supposedly found her on the train tracks, was her friend and she paid him $2,200 to cut her hand and foot off to make it appear as though she had been hit by a train.

Her plot was to collect $150,000 from the insurance company, but her plan backfired when she didn’t “qualify for the insurance money” and doctors were unable to save her hand and foot.

The Bac Tu Liem police chief, Nguyen Thanh Tung, said on Tuesday that after the woman hired her friend to cut off her hand and foot, she “continued to have him report false information to the police.”

“The greatest shame is that, instead of claiming the money, she has suffered a huge loss by losing both her hand and foot.

“Her case sends a warning that people should not attempt insurance fraud at the expense of their own health.”

The police chief added that this was the first time he has ever encountered an insurance scam throughout his entire policing career.

The woman’s scheme to collect insurance money sparked a heated debate on social media where some are claiming that the act is not unusual in Vietnam, according to BBC News.

Facebook user Ly Phan wrote, “A very typical case of insurance fraud. The kind of joke that only happens in Vietnam.”

Phan went on to say that the woman went as far as paying someone to cut off her hand and foot to collect insurance money and now, she’s “at risk to go to jail” and there was “no benefit” to this scheme at all.

“She may be going bankrupt or urgently need money to do something like that. It is never easy to cheat insurance companies,” wrote Thanh Phuong Quynh Le in a Facebook post.

Another social media user said, “How destitute must a person be to do such a thing?” But it has been reported that the woman executed the ploy to collect the insurance money because she was struggling with her business.

Following the insurance scheme, Vietnamese police dropped the investigation and the woman and her friend will not face any criminal charges.

Le Van Luan, who is with the Hanoi Bar Association, stated that “it would be difficult to find the appropriate law to charge the pair with under the penal code.”

“We need a new article for this kind of fraud. Her self-harm is horrible and extremely rare.”

[Image via iStock Photo]

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