Pair accused of NY blast scam blow their cover

It's an ill wind indeed that doesn't blow someone some opportunity. And in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11th, one Georgia couple appear to have seen a grisly opportunity to profit from the tragedy. Instead they are now likely to serve time for insurance fraud.

When Sheriff Jimmy Thomas got the call from the Minnesota Life Insurance Company to verify a claim for $200,000 he was puzzled. Minnesota Life had become suspicious on learning that the office co-ordinating the search for the missing had no record of claimant, Ms Cynthia Gavett, and the local newspaper never published an obituary.

Concord, 45 miles south of Atlanta, Georgia, has a population of barely 330. Surely, Mr Thomas thought, he'd have heard of a local death in the September 11th attack. It didn't take a deputy long to find Ms Gavett, at home, hale and hearty.

"It is my understanding that she was continuing in her daily walk of life," Mr Thomas told the Atlanta Constitution. "This is about as low as it gets."

Mr Charles Allen Gavett (44) and his 40-year-old wife have been charged with fraud after claiming against their policy on her supposed death on September 11th.

According to police, a week after the attack, Mr Gavett had rung the New York police to say his wife was due to be at a meeting in the World Trade Centre at 9 a.m. and was now missing.

He had then allegedly submitted a $200,000 insurance claim backed up by a copy of her diary and an affidavit from their 14-year-old daughter.

The couple, who have two children, live on a $300,000, 72-acre mini-estate bought less than two years ago north of Concord. Mr Gavett earned a living as a dumpster driver while his wife sold cosmetics and household products from home.

Conviction on the insurance fraud felony charge carries up to 10 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine.

"We believe this is the first arrest in the United States for filing a false death claim from September 11," said the Georgia Insurance Commissioner Mr John Oxendine, whose investigators helped on the case.

New York State insurance officials said they have made no similar arrests but are investigating several cases of possible phoney death claims and identity thefts stemming from the World Trade Centre tragedy.