What some people won’t do for money.
In an attempt to collect 40,000 euros ($44,780) in insurance payments, a 58-year-old German landscape gardener had a friend cut off his thumb and forefinger with a chainsaw.
According to authorities, the gardener held onto a cutting board while his accomplice, a 28-year-old trucker, sawed off his friend’s fingers. The gardener then threw the severed digits away before claiming money from two different insurance companies. The police arrested both men after one of them was overheard bragging about the ruse.
Both men were convicted in a Wuerzburg, Germany, courtroom. The eight-fingered gardener was given a probationary sentence of one-and-a-half-years, while his chainsaw-wielding accomplice (because of a previous criminal record) received a jail sentence.