Obtaining a fake death certificate is easier than you think

How is death legally recognized and verified in today’s world? What are the potential uses of a fake proof of death? And what offerings have we come across in our research?

In this article, we look at one of the more unusual and quirky tidbits we find in our threat intelligence research, showing you how diverse and, let’s face it, weird the world of fake document templates can be.

Let’s dive into the murky waters of the world beyond.

What is a death certificate?

A death certificate, also known as proof of death, is an official legal document issued by the government that certifies the date, place, and cause of a person’s death.

It is essential for various legal and administrative processes, such as settling the deceased’s estate, claiming life insurance, closing bank accounts, and notifying government agencies like the Social Security Administration.

The document typically includes personal details of the deceased and is usually issued by the state’s vital records office after being prepared by a medical professional, such as a physician or coroner.

How are death certificates legally obtained?

The process of obtaining a death certificate generally begins with the funeral home, which often handles the initial paperwork. Relatives or legal representatives can request certified copies from the local vital records office or through the country’s official channels.

The process can take anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks, depending on the state and whether there are any complications, such as an ongoing investigation into the cause of death.

The cost varies by state but typically ranges from $5 to $30 per copy​.

Some institutions even make the process fully digitalized, one example being the City of Boston, which even provides a full-text search of all archived deceased persons you can order a certificate for.

As might be expected, the digitalization of this process itself brings forth an entirely new set of challenges that we do not deal with here, but are worth keeping in mind.

And mind, this description only relates to how this works in the United States. Things will undoubtedly vary significantly across the world – longer processing times, higher costs or more difficulty communicating with authorities are likely in more isolated or less developed countries.

But human beings are not that different from each other when it comes to lying and cheating, regardless of jurisdiction.

And that’s where we get to the interesting bits: Why would anybody want to obtain a fake death certificate? And where are they getting them?

Potential reasons for faking a death certificate

You may have seen fictional characters trying to fake their deaths in movies or books, most often with the purpose of escaping their situation or bluffing their enemies.

This strategy is as old as drama itself — whether it’s Shakespeare’s Juliet, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Marvel’s Loki or Quentin Tarantino’s The Bride, all of these characters have faked their deaths to achieve their goals (in Bond’s case, hilariously, the movie’s own title gives this away before you even watch anything).

But why would you fake your death in the real world?

Unsurprisingly, it comes down to money:

• Insurance Fraud: A person might fake their own death to claim life insurance benefits, or to allow a beneficiary to claim the insurance payout.

• Debt Evasion: Individuals might fake death to escape significant financial obligations, such as debts or taxes.

• Legal Evasion: Criminals might use a fake death certificate to evade law enforcement or avoid pending legal actions.

• Immigration and Identity Fraud: Someone might fake a death to create a new identity, either to stay hidden or to start afresh in another location.

• Inheritance Manipulation: In some cases, family members might fake a relative’s death to expedite or manipulate the distribution of an inheritance.

These are just some of the reasons people commit death fraud, and it’s more widespread than you might think. Recorded instances of death fraud featured in the media include people trying to avoid jail sentences, paying for child support, collecting life insurance payouts or gaining a scholarship.

Where are death certificate templates available?

We’ve established what a death certificate is, how it is legally obtained and what might be the motivations for buying a fake one.

So, where can you actually get one?

Once again, it all can start with a simple search query. Phrases like fake death certificate or death certificate template will yield tens of thousands of results, with some of these being highly relevant.

And as with many other templates, unfortunately, the stuff you might find won’t be limited to specialized template farms that we have been reporting on like the Doc Juicer.

On the contrary, you will find many document samples on globally known and used document sharing platforms.

Scribd, for example, lists more than 310k results when searching for a death certificate, a staggering number even the template farms pale in comparison with.

Figure 1: The globally popular doc sharing platform Scribd lists
more than 310k results when searching for "death certificate"

The platform’s search bar even gives you a list of the most popular queries to get an idea which countries or formats might be the most coveted ones. Just in case you were not sure where the death fakers come from the most.

Figure 2: The platform’s search bar even provides relevant search query suggestions,
indicating which countries might be the most popular for death fakers around the world

Obviously, the quality and usability of these will vary significantly, but even just the sheer volume of stored files suggests there will be many documents of sufficient quality that even template farmers might get their inspiration from.

Looking then specifically at specialized template farms in the scope of our threat intelligence research, we have already identified 400+ different death certificates, relating to more than 190 countries.

Figure 3: Our research into template farms shows death certificate
templates available for virtually any country

And that’s just for a couple template farmers whose catalogs we already analyzed, meaning there undoubtedly is way more of these templates available online.

Just as with other document types, template farms operate like regular online shops, displaying a template catalog on a website that you can browse through, put items in a cart and process the payment.

And the price point?

Our data shows the average price for a death certificate is about $28. 

What a bargain, am I right?

I wish this was just a sarcastic side note, but considering the wide array of potential fraudulent uses of fake death certificates, it’s sadly true.

Cheap and highly available – this is the reality of today’s fake document market, and if you think this doesn’t concern you, you have not been paying attention.

Actually, one sarcastic note with respect to template availability: Even if you weren’t up for downloading a death certificate example for free or buying a high-quality cheap template, there’s no reason to despair!

Many official institutions publish PDF templates of their death certificates online, making these authentic document samples free and readily available to anyone.

How a fake death certificate template looks like

We know what death certificates are, where these can be obtained and what might be some of their fraudulent use cases.

But hey, we haven’t actually shown you what these documents actually look like, right?

Very generally and regardless of jurisdiction, almost all fake death certificate templates we have seen in template farms’ offering share several basic components like:

• an artsy, decorative framing,

• a country-specific coat of arms,

• a section containing personal information of the deceased person,

• an official-looking stamp of the issuing institution, and 

• a section with date and signature of the issuing authority.

Figure 4: A diagram showing the major components of death certificate
templates we have seen in template farms’ offering

With these components done right, template farmers can quickly emulate the look of official legal documents. Provided that they actually want to sell the highest-quality fakes they can come up with.

And why wouldn’t they?

Plain and simple, researching and harvesting authentic documents demands time and resources, thus reducing farmers’ profit margins.

And it often seems like template farmers even create some of these templates from scratch and without bothering to research what the original looks like, particularly with respect to small countries whose official document samples might be pretty hard to come by.

But more on that in a second.

Even if a fake death certificate is constructed professionally, a small detail like a single typo can give fraudsters away.

Luckily, farmers aim to provide editable templates, so fraudsters have more than one way of screwing things up if they were not paying proper attention in grammar class—but equally, those who are diligent enough might just make it through many document verification processes.

The issue of cross-border death verification

Where do I envision major risks concerning the utilization of fake death certificates?

One would like to assume that verification processes of such a vital piece of documentation are thoroughly constructed and executed to limit the potential for fraud to the highest possible degree.

But designing such a process will likely be a complex challenge that primarily big businesses with enough resources can deal with adequately. Smaller financial institutions might have a much tougher time conducting all the necessary steps, especially in cases where fraudsters are not amateurs and the procedure would require contacting numerous local or foreign authorities, or utilizing third-party professional services.

And there’s one major component of this I’m particularly curious about, as it has been a thorn in the heel of many, many financial crime investigations – the issue of cross-border information sharing and verification.

We already established that a fake death certificate from virtually anywhere in the world can be obtained fairly easily and fast online.

But now comes the question of how the fake proof of death will be used to commit fraud.

For example, if the submitted fake relates to a very small country like Maldives, Marshall Islands or Singapore, there’s probably a good chance you don’t have experience with how this document should look like, and would have to undergo the complex process laid out above to confirm the document’s veracity.

Distance, language or potential for corruption of local officials – there are a lot of factors at play here, and the potentially high payouts in cases such as life insurance frauds imply that fraudsters will not embark on this fraudulent journey at least with some level of preparation.

Altogether, likely not an easy task your financial institution or any other business has a lot of experience with.

The question of document unfamiliarity is not to be underestimated, as we know from experience that unknown/unfamiliar documents are the no.1 risk area businesses are concerned with when it comes to document fraud.

Figure 5: A poll conducted during one of our webinars clearly shows the risk area of
"unknown documents" is the one businesses are most concerned with

Ask yourself how you would go about this. I’d bet you wouldn’t be able to provide a fast and easy answer. I wouldn’t either.

How we came across a fake death certificate

While such cases are not overly frequent, our team has actually recently dealt with a fake death certificate being submitted into one of our clients’ document processing pipeline.

Protecting our clients’ data and confidentiality means we can’t go into personal info or specifics of this case within the article. Regardless, it provides at least a bit of an insight into how these documents might be altered.

The fake death certificate was submitted as an image (i.e. a photo of a physical document or its scan), and triggered several of our risk indicators, including:

• image containing tampered regions,

• image containing digitally modified characters,

• image containing unusual characters,

• Image being marked as re-saved.
  

All of these are important, and together they compile an industry-leading assessment of the document’s authenticity that our Resistant Documents solution provides.

And, as always, context is king, and we pride ourselves on proper explanations with respect to each indicator, going into detail about why and how some indicators point to fraudulent activity.

Significant discrepancies in any of these point to deliberate alteration of some of the characters of the document, such as the date of death of the deceased, a crucial detail for processing life insurance claims.

At Resistant AI, we don’t settle for “risk scores of 68%” that you need to interpret, nor do we ask you to just trust us. We pride ourselves on providing actionable verdicts to help you make faster decisions, and detailed explanations of our document assessments for you to trust—and even challenge—our outcomes.

How to check for any document type, from anywhere

Template farms know the diversity of their customers, and often focus on a plethora of document types, fueling the proliferation of all kinds of document fraud.

The thing is, if you want to fight document fraud efficiently, you can’t design your processes just for one document type from a handful of jurisdictions.

In a global economy, you need to act with a global perspective yourself.

We intentionally develop our Resistant Documents solution in a way that is document and language agnostic, meaning that it doesn’t need to know a document beforehand to check it for fraud, nor does it need to read the content of the documents.

It looks at how a document is built, rather than what it says.

With our solution, even a submitted fake death certificate from Madagascar will be properly flagged as such, even if you’ve never dealt with that kind of document before.

In a world where fraudsters leverage speed, scale and document variety to their advantage, we can confidently state: “Right back at you, fraudsters.”