A Rotorua woman faked her own death, posing as another person to claim she was killed by a stray hockey ball, to collect $800,000 in life insurance.

Mary-Rose Ponce Calderon was sentenced in the Auckland District Court in April to three years and two months in prison for the elaborate fraud.

Sentencing notes released on August 22 showed she had earlier been found guilty on a raft of charges that included obtaining by deception, forgery, fraudulent use of a document, and money laundering.

The offending began in April 2015, when Calderon successfully took out an $800,000 life insurance policy online with the company Asteron Life, using her maiden name, Mary-Rose Kereopa.

In her application she listed the name Sharon Snow as the beneficiary in the event of her death, giving Snow the same address and cellphone number as herself.

The following month, Calderon contacted the insurer pretending to be Snow, and claimed Mary-Rose Kereopa had died as the result of an accidental hockey ball strike to the head, Judge Russell Collins' sentencing notes said.

She then went about forging and altering the necessary documents to support the fabricated death.

In June 2015, Asteron Life deposited $800,000 into Calderon's bank account.

But the offending did not stop there, Judge Collins said.

In April 2016, Calderon, again using her maiden name, successfully took out another life insurance policy online, this time with Pinnacle Life and for the sum of $1 million.


https://nz.newswaver.com/54754

:archeyebrow:

has anyone ever died from getting hit in the head with a hockey BALL???...not a hard-ass hockey puck...but a ball??...this fool never had a chance of pulling this off successfully....

^ yes.



She should have left it alone at the $800,000 they didn't even flag it as the suspicious meaning they weren't investigating it. The second company flag it.