Police Charge 'Dead' Canoeist With Fraud

Photo surfaces on web showing missing man with wife in Panama
By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 5, 2007 9:43 AM CST
Police Charge 'Dead' Canoeist With Fraud
In this undated image released by Britain's Cleveland police Monday Dec. 3, 2007, John Darwin, who was reported missing more than five years ago, is seen at an unknown location. The last trace of Darwin was the wreckage of his canoe, which washed up on a beach in northern England. He turned up in London...   (Associated Press)

Police arrested John Darwin, the canoeist who reappeared in London after being presumed dead for 5 years, early this morning on evidence that he and his wife faked his death to defraud their life insurance agency. The mysteriously tanned and fit Darwin had claimed to have no idea where he'd been, but photos of him and his wife in Panama surfaced on the Internet, and his wife recently sold their home and moved to Panama.

The photos, taken in July, were posted on a website promoting luxury real estate in Panama. Asked, before the photo was found, how she will handle the return of his life insurance and other benefits, she said, “It is not the money I ever wanted—it was having my husband back." (More missing boater stories.)

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