A Dutch dentist who chopped off his finger and then faked a car crash before claiming $2.1 million from insurers was given a suspended sentence and fined by a court Thursday.
The 50-year-old man mutilated himself and crashed his car into a tree in Belgium in the hope of convincing insurers that the steering wheel had inflicted the injury, the court said.
However, the shape of the cut on his index finger, the level of anaesthetic in his blood and the absence of skid marks on the road suggested otherwise.
"It was not an accident but an amputation he carried out himself, or he had someone do it for him," a court spokeswoman said.
The dentist was fined $30,000 euros and received a six-month suspended jail sentence with 240 hours community service.