The lure of profit at the cost of health?
A Taiwanese man in his twenties was arrested and charged with insurance fraud after trying to receive money because he had both legs amputated, Taiwanese authorities announced in a statement published on March 14.
The facts date back to January 2023, according to the local newspaper Taiwan News.
This 23-year-old student's plan was then "simple", although extremely shocking: he intended to face an ice bath for 10 hours in order to be seriously injured by the cold and need an amputation of his legs, for then receive a sum of around 1.2 million euros from his insurance.
His condition was expected to be attributed to frostbite sustained while riding his scooter in cold weather.
A contract to pay off a friend's debts
The young man, referred to only by his last name, Zhang, was encouraged by a friend to submerge his legs for 10 hours in ice.
His friend Liao, also 23 years old, was particularly in debt after making bad cryptocurrency investments.
He even had his friend sign a contract which provided that he would pay him 720,000 euros, once the insurance money had been received.
The two friends had bought large blocks of ice in the region of the capital Taipei on the evening of January 26.
The next night, Zhang was tied to a chair by his friend and plunged his feet into a bucket of ice from 2 a.m. until 12:20 p.m., according to the police investigation.
Twenty-four hours later, he was transferred to the emergency room in Taipei.
After more than a week of treatment, both of his legs had to be amputated below the knees.
Injuries impossible given the local weather
But he who thought he was caught is taken.
The young Zhang had in fact taken out numerous insurance contracts a few weeks before the events.
These close subscriptions surprised the insurance companies, who refused to compensate him and reported his case to the authorities.
Only his “historic” insurance compensated him, to the tune of 6,700 euros, far from the million he hoped for when embarking on this project.
Also read: The insurance scammer invented 300 car accidents
Authorities from the Taiwanese Central Bureau of Investigation took over the case and uncovered the deception.
After analyzing weather records from the region at the time of the incident, it was established that temperatures had ranged between 6 and 17°C, making injuries like those suffered by Zhang impossible.
“The emergency medical examination photographs showed that the injuries were clear and symmetrical and that (Zhang) had no sock or shoe prints on the two frozen feet (…) and that the injuries were therefore self-inflicted,” detail the police in their press release.