Irina Vorotinov has been charged by federal prosecutors in Minnesota with defrauding Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company of more than $2 million in life insurance proceeds by falsely claiming that her former husband had died. Her son, Alkon Vorotinov, was charged with actively concealing the fraudulent scheme.
According to the criminal complaint and documents filed in court, on April 22, 2010, Igor Vorotinov purchased a life insurance policy on his own life from Mutual of Omaha and listed Ms. Vorotinov and Alkon Vorotinov as the beneficiaries. On October 1, 2011, police in Moldova received a phone call reporting a dead body at the entrance of the Cojusna village in central Moldova. Documents recovered from the body, including a passport, hotel cards, and contact phone numbers, identified the man as Igor Vorotinov.
According to the criminal complaint and documents filed in court, Ms. Vorotinov traveled to Moldova to identify the body. Along with Igor Vorotinov's cousin and a representative from the U.S. Embassy, Ms. Vorotinov went to the morgue, where she identified the body as Igor Vorotinov. At her request, prosecutors said, the body was cremated in Odessa, Ukraine. Ms. Vorotinov returned to Minnesota on October 29, 2011 and filed a death claim with Mutual of Omaha on November 7, 2011. Mutual of Omaha paid Ms. Vorotinov $2,048,414.09 in the form of a check sent on March 23, 2012 by U.S. mail to her home in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
