The coffin was already underground when the police arrived. The family insisted that there was nothing to investigate. The corpse, they claimed, had become so emaciated due to a supposed overdose that no one, except the mother and grandmother, should see it. The burial had taken place unusually quickly, with few witnesses and before nightfall, in a village in the central Chinese province of Henan.
Without a death certificate, without proof of cremation, the police began to suspect that the dead person might still be alive. And he was.
Prosecutors in the city of Anyang revealed this week a case that has caused a huge stir on Chinese social media: a man accused of drunk driving faked his own death with the help of his mother and grandmother to escape justice and disappear over 2,000 kilometers away.
It all started in January last year when the man, identified only by his surname, Si, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. During the investigation, the police discovered that he was not a first-time offender: he had already been arrested twice before for drunk driving and driving without a license. He was out on bail awaiting trial.
As he later stated, the fear of going to prison, combined with the debts he had accumulated and his criminal record, eventually pushed him to devise his fake death. In June of last year, he set the plan in motion. He bought a coffin, scattered several empty medicine bottles around his home to simulate an overdose, and used cooling equipment to lower his body temperature while holding his breath, recreating the appearance of a corpse.
His mother and grandmother completed the performance. They explained to the neighbors that the face of the supposed deceased was unrecognizable due to the effects of drugs and covered his head with a sheet during the wake. Before nightfall, they buried the coffin quickly while Si fled to Yunnan province in the southwest of the country.
The investigation gradually dismantled the hoax. Agents reviewed surveillance camera recordings, bank transactions, and phone records until they concluded that Si was still alive. A search operation was then launched, which ended three months ago with his arrest in Yunnan.
The Scammer Who Buried a Coffin Full of Stones
In May 2017, the Police in Yongzhou, in Hunan province, received several reports from people who claimed to have been scammed by a woman named Deng. The suspect had presented herself for months as a consultant with access to very profitable investments. She convinced friends, acquaintances, and other investors to lend her large sums of money, promising high returns. Initially, she promptly made the payments, which increased the victims' trust, but in reality, she returned interests using the money she was obtaining from new loans. When the scheme collapsed and debts began to accumulate, she disappeared.
Shortly after, creditors received the news that Deng had committed suicide by jumping into a river. Her parents reported that the body had been recovered and buried. The funeral was held with all the usual solemnity, and the coffin was buried in her hometown. For many of the scammed individuals, this meant the definitive end of any possibility of recovering the money.
However, investigators found too many inconsistencies. No one had actually seen the corpse, the burial had been organized unusually quickly, and the behavior of the family raised suspicions. After several days of surveillance, they discovered that the parents were in discreet contact with a person hiding in Changsha. The police set up an operation and, just four days after the supposed burial, they found the "deceased" perfectly alive, staying in a hotel.
The Fraud that Ended in a Family Tragedy
Among all the cases of fake deaths recorded in China, few are as devastating as the one that occurred in 2018 in Xinhua County, also in Hunan province. The protagonist was He, a man suffocated by debts. Convinced that he could not repay the money, he devised a plan for his family to collect a life insurance payout.
Without telling his wife, he took out an accident policy, with her listed as the beneficiary. Days later, he borrowed a car and, in the early hours of the morning, drove it into a river to simulate a fatal accident. The vehicle was found submerged, and he disappeared without a trace. Everything indicated that he had died. While he remained hidden, waiting for the insurance company to start the compensation process, he was unaware of the consequences his "death" was causing.
His wife could not bear it and posted a long farewell letter on social media, expressing that she no longer had reasons to live and wished to reunite with her husband. The next day, she disappeared with their two young children, aged four and two. Shortly after, the three were found dead. When the husband learned of what had happened, he turned himself in to the police.
The Elderly Man Who Wanted to Attend His Own Funeral
In 2023, an 84-year-old man from Anhui province decided to organize his own funeral. Far from hiding, he personally attended the preparations and watched as neighbors, family, and friends came to bid him farewell.
There was a coffin, traditional funeral rituals, wreaths, a banquet, and dozens of attendees. When journalists asked him why he had organized such a ceremony, he responded with a mix of humor and sincerity: he wanted to know how many people would come on the day he actually died.
The Fake Dead Man Who Couldn't Stand the Heat
In 2023, in Hubei province, a protest against municipal urban management officers ended up featuring one of the most surreal scenes in recent years.
After a confrontation with the inspectors, several street vendors claimed that one of their colleagues had died as a result of the incident. To demand accountability, they organized an impromptu wake in the middle of the street. They placed the supposed dead man inside a coffin and started a public protest that attracted numerous onlookers and local media.
For several hours, the man remained motionless, playing the role of a corpse while the coffin remained closed under stifling heat. Finally, unable to bear the temperature and lack of air, the supposed deceased stood up in front of everyone, opened the coffin, and said he could not take it anymore and needed water.
The Woman Who Discovered She Had Been Dead for Years
A couple of years ago, an extraordinary case came to light when a woman discovered, while trying to renew her identity document, that for the Chinese Administration, she had been dead for over five years.
The investigation revealed that her husband had managed to forge all the necessary documentation to officially certify her death, including certificates related to cremation and the cancellation of her residence registration, the system that legally certifies the administrative existence of each citizen in China. On paper, the woman had ceased to exist.
Zeng Jia, a 22-year-old student from Wuhan studying funeral services, organized her funeral. The idea arose after attending her grandfather's funeral. She wondered why people receive so much affection when they can no longer appreciate it and decided to experience her own wake while still alive.
She spared no details. She rented a coffin, hired specialized makeup artists to prepare corpses, decorated the scene with flowers, and invited family, friends, and even photographers and journalists. For about an hour, she remained motionless inside the coffin, embracing a Hello Kitty doll on her chest, while attendees filed past to bid her farewell and lay flowers. At the end of the ceremony, she rose from the coffin and delivered a speech: "I feel very good after being dead."