Chinese man accused of tricking newlywed wife into taking poisoned pills to claim insurance money
- The man, surnamed Dai, allegedly switched traditional Chinese medicine pills with tetrodotoxin, the poison commonly found in pufferfish
- The couple had just married two months earlier, but Dai was under a mountain of debt
A court in eastern China heard on Wednesday the case of a man who is charged with murder for poisoning his wife of just two months to claim her insurance policy.
Dai has confessed to murdering his wife, and the court in Zhejiang province said the judgment will be announced at a later date. If found guilty, the case would be the latest in a string of high-profile insurance fraud murders targeting loved ones in China.
The court heard that Dai bought dried pufferfish, tetrodotoxin – a neurotoxin – and pearl-powder soft capsules, a traditional Chinese medicine. He is accused of plotting the murder for months, and prosecutors said he used the names of five of his friends to order the ingredients.
In July, the couple got married, and, just two months later, Dai allegedly secretly changed the pearl powder in the capsules to tetrodotoxin and tricked Wang into taking two of them while he was away from home, the prosecutors said.
Her colleagues found the woman dead two days later when they checked up on her after she disappeared from work.
