Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Lost His Legs in an Insurance Scam

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Two men in Taiwan, Liao and Zhang, come up with a plan to give Zhang frostbite on his legs in hopes of collecting insurance money.

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My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So this guy, his name's Liao. And poor Liao, he just lost everything.

So Liao's 23, he goes to college in Taiwan, and he's broke. So he tries making some money trading crypto. But the poor guy just fails, big time. And Liao's like, damn, what am I going to do now? And that is when he comes up with an extremely terrible idea to get rich. So he reaches out to his friend, this guy, Jong, to help him with this plan. And Liao and Jong, they went to high school together, now they go to the same university, so they know each other pretty well.

So Liao goes to Zhang and he lies to him like, dude, I need your help. There are dangerous gang members after me. And Zhang is like, I. So then Liao explains this extremely terrible plan to him. He wants Zhang to take out a bunch of insurance policies on himself. Then he wants him to accidentally get frostbite and cash in those claims.

And then John can give him some of that money and he can pay off these dangerous gang members that don't actually exist. And if there's any money left over, they can split it. And Zhang hears this plan. and he's like, I. So they set this scheme into motion. And over the next few days, Zhang signs up for eight different insurance policies.

And total they're worth about 1.3 million US dollars. Then Liao asked Zhang to agree to sign a legal note that says when Zhang gets paid from the insurance, he agrees to pay Liao $800,000 US dollars of it. And of course, Zhang's like, aye. And then one night in January, when the weather's finally right, the two of them ride around town on their scooters. They drive around for a while, and the next

they stop at a local store and buy a bunch of dry ice. And then they go back to Liao's place and he gets out a chair. And he has Jong sit in it and then he gets a big container and he makes John put his feet inside. And then he fills the container up with dried ice. And Liao's like, this is probably going to hurt a lot so I have to tie you up so you don't move. And Jong's like, I. And so Liao zip ties him to the chair. And as they wait for the frostbite to set in, Liaa snaps a bunch of photos of Zhang for some reason. So anyway, Zhang is sitting there with his feet in this dry ice and 10 hours go by and he's still sitting there.

And when Liao finally lets him out of the chair, Zhang is hurting. I mean, he's got frostbite. Like he can't feel his legs and he needs medical attention. So they go to the hospital. And the doctors look at Zhang's frostbitten legs and they're immediately like, what the fuck?

How did this happen? And Zhang tells them that he and Liao were just outriding scooters the night before and that it was so cold out. that his legs got frostbitten. And Liao's like, yep, that's exactly what happened. Here's the thing about doctors, though. They tend to know things about certain injuries and ailments. So they look at Zhang's legs, and right away, they know he's bull-shitting.

I mean, for one, his frostbite is neat and symmetrical across both legs, which is just unlikely to happen. Plus, there are no marks from his socks or shoes, which shows he wasn't wearing any. And who the hell would ride a scooter barefoot? I mean, clearly this story isn't adding up. Anyway, so the doctors do what they can to treat Zhang, but Zhang's frostbite ends up being really bad. Like, really bad. Like, it's not going to heal.

Ever. And ultimately, the doctors have to amputate both of his legs below the knee. Meanwhile, all the insurance companies that Zhang signed up for, they start receiving claims from the hospital for Zhang's frostbite injury. And one of those companies sends a compensation check to Zhang for $7,200. But the others, they look at this claim, and they, I think it's awfully suspicious. I mean, this guy bought these policies literally days before he got frostbite.

Come on, that seems shady. So they just don't pay him, and instead they alert the police. So police, they start investigating, and pretty quickly, they discover that on the night that Zhang allegedly got frostbite riding his scooter, the lowest recorded temperature that night was 42 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a little chilly, but not even close to being cold enough to naturally cause frostbite. So eventually the police investigate Zhang, and then they come connect him to Liao, and they get a warrant to search Liao's house, and there they find the container

he used as well as the photos of Zhang on his phone. So they arrest Zhang and Liao, and they charge them with fraud, among other things. And this all happened a few months ago, and I couldn't find any updates on them, so I assume they're still waiting on their trial. So shout out to Taiwan.