The German police have issued a search notice for Hianick Kamba, a former footballer who in 2015 faked his own death with the complicity of his wife to collect the life insurance premium.
As Gelsenkirchen police reported in a statement, Kamba, who played in Schalke04’s youth team alongside Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, returned to his homeland in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2016.
With false documents, the wife was then able to convince the insurance company that her husband had died in Africa following a car accident. In October of the same year, his wife received compensation of around 1.2 million euros, according to German media. The woman also received a substantial compensation from Kamba’s employer.
In March 2018, the police later explained, the defendant presented himself at the German embassy in Kinshasa and claimed that his mother and wife had been kidnapped in order to receive the insured sum.
The former footballer, who worked as a laboratory technician, was sentenced for fraud to three years and ten months’ imprisonment in November 2021. When the verdict became final, Kamba fled to his homeland.
As Bild reported, Kamba pleaded innocent and blamed his wife, who was also convicted of fraud. The man said he was “disappointed in Germany, which has no evidence but wants to send me to prison”. Furthermore, the ex-footballer said he fled because the judge had speculated that he would be deported once his sentence had been served.
An international arrest warrant has now been issued for Kamba.