Public servant is sentenced after amputating his own foot to receive compensation of R$1.5 million

A public servant from Amélia Rodrigues, in Recôncavo da Bahia, was sentenced to two years in open prison, with the sentence replaced by measures restricting rights, for defrauding insurance companies after amputating his own foot in an attempt to receive compensation of R$1.5 million. The case occurred in 2019, but the man was sentenced in 2025. According to the decision of the Criminal Executions Court of São Gonçalo dos Campos, Vanderley dos Santos Gomes must complete 720 hours of service to the community and pay a monetary benefit in the amount of R$7,590. The sentence began to be served in May this year. The convict tried to take the case to the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), but was unable to do so. Vanderley's defense had filed a request for prequestioning, a legal resource used to force state magistrates to expressly state which laws were applied in the decision. This step is mandatory so that a case can be analyzed by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) or the Federal Supreme Court (STF). However, the Bahia Court considered that all points and laws questioned by Vanderley's defense had already been examined in detail and debated throughout the process, and it was not necessary to forward them to the STJ. The first instance ruling concluded that the employee planned the fraud when taking out insurance and later presenting the story to receive compensation. The judge highlighted that the sequence of hiring, the values incompatible with the financial condition and the temporal proximity between the policies and the mutilation demonstrated the deliberate intention to obtain an undue advantage. In the appeal sent to the Court, Vanderley's defense denied the crime and asked for his acquittal due to insufficient evidence. His lawyer argued that there is not enough evidence in the case to prove that the defendant planned the fraud or caused the injury himself. The defense also claimed that the accusation presented is not sustainable and does not bring certainty to the conviction. g1 tries to locate Vanderley dos Santos Gomes' defense. When analyzing the defense's appeal, the Second Criminal Chamber of the Court of Justice of Bahia (TJ-BA) upheld the conviction for fraud to receive insurance compensation. The judges considered the body of evidence formed by expert reports, documents from insurance companies, medical reports and statements collected throughout the investigation and process to be robust. Understand the case The employee took out four life and personal accident insurance policies in June and July 2019. Together, the policies provided for compensation of up to R$1.5 million in the event of accidents that caused the insured person to become disabled. Investigations showed that a month later, Vanderley amputated his own right foot in a simulated robbery, in the early hours of July 10, 2019, on a road in the village of Mercês, in the rural area of São Gonçalo dos Campos. The "crime" was recorded as a robbery. The member was stored in a backpack and found along with the belongings he told police had been stolen. The scammer was rescued, underwent treatment and surgery. Days later, he was already preparing to receive around R$1.5 million when the volume of money and the number of policies triggered an alert in the insurance companies' intelligence system. Due to the total number of simultaneous policies, the maneuver generated distrust among insurance companies and the Civil Police. Investigations and forensic examinations revealed that the man had invented the story to carry out the "insurance scam". During the investigation, the police and insurance companies identified a series of inconsistencies in the narrative presented by the server. In addition to the simultaneous contracting of several policies a few weeks before the episode, attention was drawn to the fact that the man had quickly filed compensation claims and that there was no motivation for a kidnapping followed by amputation without demanding ransom or any other advantage for the alleged criminals. The maneuver resulted in a sentence of 2 years in prison for embezzlement, in the first and second instances. He was ordered to begin serving his sentence in May after the case became final. What insurance company lawyers say "The case is one of the most emblematic in a market in which, in 2024 alone, more than R$1.1 billion in compensation was avoided in proven scams", stated lawyer Adriano Scattini, from Advocacia Zacarelli, the firm that represented all the insurance companies involved. In a statement, the company reported that the first fact to draw attention was the multiplicity of policies taken out by public servants who would not have the income to pay for them in the long term. Each with a reference company in the sector. "Cases like these are detected because companies operate in an integrated manner, which is the best way to combat the insurance fraud epidemic," explained Scattini. Medical examinations confirmed that the amputation of the foot could not have been caused by violent blows during a robbery. "Whoever helped him had knowledge of surgical techniques, which invalidated the version of violence and assault," explained Scattini.