A woman has been arrested on suspicion of faking her own death in Zanzibar, Tanzania, so her family could claim £140,000 in life insurance.

The 45-year-old woman, who has not been named, was tracked down in Canada after her son was arrested in the West Midlands and confessed to detectives that she was alive. She returned to the UK at the request of the police, and was arrested by the City of London’s insurance fraud squad.

Relatives of the woman initially said she had been killed in a car crash in Zanzibar and made a claim for life insurance in May 2016. Detectives allege that her family provided a forged death certificate and accident reports.

But insurers’ suspicions were raised by the documents when they tried to verify the details of the death. Rather than pay out on the claim, they flagged the case with the City of London police, which handles financial crime.

Detectives arrested and interviewed the woman’s 19-year-old son, from Walsall, and he confessed that his mother was not dead. They then contacted the woman and asked her to return to the UK, where she was arrested at Perry Barr police station. The son’s 24-year-old guardian was also arrested.

The three have been released on bail until April.