Mother and teen son fake her death for insurance money to pay smugglers to bring family to UK

Arafa Nassib

A mother and son of the United Kingdom, were arrested after faking her death for insurance money. 48-year-old Arafa Nassib of West Midlands, went to Africa with her 17-year-old son Adil Kasim. There, the two hatched a plan to pretend that she was killed in order to get insurance money.  The teenager claimed that his mother died in a car crash in Zanzibar, and a family friend helped the teenager get a fraudulent death certificate.
Kasim then handed over to the fake document to an insurance company in London, in order to collect nearly £140,000 ($180,000). Meanwhile, his mother fled to Ottowa, Canada, where she hoped to start a new life.
However, the insurance company became suspicious of the document. They did not pay out any of the money, but rather they called the London Police Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department to investigate the claim. The teen and his mother Nassib, who were born in Somalia and is a citizen of the United Kingdom, were arrested. Nassib admitted that she wanted to use some of the money to pay for smugglers to bring family members from a Tanzanian refugee camp to the U.K. She wanted to use some of the money to pay the thousands of dollars she racked up in credit card debt on luxury items that she was unable to pay for.
Adil Kasim was given a 12-month community order after the judge ruled that the teen was used as a “pawn” by his mother. Nassib was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.