Guilty Plea in $2 Million Life Insurance Scam
Minneapolis, MN (KROC-AM News) - A former Twin Cities man has pleaded guilty to a federal fraud charge connected to a criminal conspiracy that reads like a Hollywood movie script.
54-year-old Igor Vorotinov went before a federal judge in Minneapolis on Friday and admitted to one count of mail fraud for faking his own death in order to collect on a $2-million life insurance policy. Court documents state he purchased the policy in 2010 and listed his wife as the beneficiary. The next year, a body was discovered along a road in Moldova and investigators found Vorotinov’s identification with the remains and issued a death certificate in his name.
That led Mutual of Omaha Insurance to pay off the $2 million life insurance policy in 2012 by sending a check to his wife, Irina, at her home in Maple Grove. Investigators say she then transferred $1.5 million to another account in her son’s name and those funds were wired overseas to accounts in Switzerland and Moldova.
Federal investigators got a big break in the case in 2013 when the son returned from a trip to Moldova and was stopped by Custom and Border Protection agents and a computer confiscated from Alkon Vorotinov contained photos showing Igor Vorotinov was alive. Irina and Alkon Vorotinov previously pleaded guilty to fraud charges and were sentenced to prison.
Prosecutors allege Igor Vorotinov was able to obtain fraudulent identification and lived as Nikoly Patoka in Moldova until his arrest last November 2018. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 29th.
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