A Minnesota man accused of faking his own death seven years ago to collect a $2 million life insurance policy arranged for a stand-in corpse to be dressed in his clothes in Moldova, according to a judge's detention order. Igor Vorotinov, 54, also planted his identification on the body before placing the corpse along a road in the Eastern European country, a US judge said in rejecting Vorotinov's request to be freed pending trial. US Magistrate Judge Katherine M. Menendez ruled Wednesday that Vorotinov posed too great a flight risk. In her ruling, Menendez said Vorotinov showed "substantial resourcefulness and cunning," the AP reports. Vorotinov was indicted in 2015 on one count of mail fraud. He was arrested this month in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria and returned to the US.
Prosecutors say Vorotinov took out the life insurance policy in spring 2010 and designated then-wife Irina Vorotinov as the primary beneficiary. The couple divorced later that year. In 2011, Irina Vorotinov, 51, identified a corpse in Moldova as her husband's, prosecutors allege. She then returned to the US with a death certificate and cremated remains and received the life insurance payment. Money was then transferred to her son, and to accounts in Switzerland and Moldova. She has pleaded guilty to her role and is serving a three-year sentence. Alkon Vorotinov, 28, pleaded guilty to one count and was sentenced to probation. The identity of the corpse is still unclear, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports . The scheme also included a 2011 funeral service at a Minneapolis cemetery, where an urn was placed in a niche. Tests later determined the remains were not Vorotinov's.
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