JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Jacksonville businessman reported dead two years ago in Venezuela was arrested in North Carolina on alleged fraud charges Saturday after his life insurance companies filed a lawsuit alleging he was alive and they shouldn't be making payments.
Details of the charges against 62-year-old Jose Lantigua are unclear. But Saturday's arrest ends two years of speculation about whether the former furniture store owner had faked an illness in 2013 while vacationing in Venezuela, leaving his business millions of dollars in debt.
His life insurance companies thought they were being swindled and launched an investigation saying the businessman was not dead after two lenders filed claims. The lawsuits by Hartford Life and Annuity Life Insurance Co. also alleged a worker was bribed to falsify documents stating the businessman's body was cremated. They also claim Lantigua fraudulently assigned benefits claims to a local creditor before he disappeared.
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