Man tried to claim insurance payout by faking own death

A man who tried to fake his own death to claim a £1m insurance payout has been sentenced to five years and seven months in prison. Syed Bukhari, 39, impersonated his wife on the phone in a bid to convince a company he had died from a heart attack in Pakistan but police were tipped off by suspicious insurers. Police discovered that Bukhari had initially contacted his insurance company via email pretending to be his partner, and claiming that he’d died from a heart attack in Karachi and then impersonated his partner on the phone in an attempt to validate the claim and progress it further. He was caught when a voice analysis expert compared Bukhari’s voice to the one on the calls allegedly made by his partner and determined that there was strong support to advocate that the ‘unknown speaker’ on the call was Bukhari. Bukhari’s sentence will be added to the seven years and 11 months in prison he is currently serving for unrelated fraud offences.