A mother who faked her death in Africa and instructed her teenage son to lodge a £136,000 life insurance claim has been jailed for two and a half years.
Arafa Nassib was rumbled when investigators found no trace of her supposed grave in Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, and were told she was living in Canada.
Nassib's 18-year-old son Adil Kasim was given a "lenient" 12-month community order at Birmingham Crown Court after the pair, both of Lower Rushall Street, Walsall, admitted conspiracy to defraud Scottish Widows.
The court heard Nassib, 48, racked up debts of £80,000 before deciding to travel to Zanzibar, where she was said to have fallen victim to a car crash in April last year.
Kasim, an art and design student, was arrested last year after submitting a "false but official-looking" death certificate said to have been issued by a hospital in Tanzania.
The court was told Nassib, who came to Britain from Kenya as a refugee in 1998, had built up debts of £80,000 stemming from purchases made at furniture firms BrightHouse and PerfectHome.
