A former German professional footballer who faked his own death, allowing his wife to cash in a large life insurance policy, has been caught in France and turned over to German authorities, prosecutors in the city of Essen said on Thursday.
The 37-year-old unnamed man was arrested in Noyon in France on September 4 and handed over on September 22.
He is now serving a sentence of three years and 10 months previously imposed by a German district court after being found guilty of faking his own death in a motor accident in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016.
His wife was then paid out €1.2 million ($1.3 million) in insurance.
The man subsequently turned up in the German embassy in Kinshasa in 2018, claiming to have been abducted and released in the jungle. The court rejected this evidence.
When he failed to start his prison term, the German authorities issued a European arrest warrant.
