A man from Osaka, Japan, was arrested on suspicions that he may have drowned his wife and made it look like an accident to claim her life insurance benefits.

Takashi Noda, 29, was taken into custody last week by the police for allegedly drowning his wife, 28-year-old Shiho, at a beach in Shirahama town on July 18, 2017, the Japan Times reported.

The couple, who got married in 2015, were undergoing divorce proceedings at the time, and the husband was the designated beneficiary of his wife’s ¥30 million (US$279,000) life insurance policy, according to investigators.

At the beach, Noda reportedly called for help and even joined the search-and-rescue efforts for his wife, claiming that he went to the bathroom when tragedy struck and his wife drowned. They found her but she was unresponsive and was pronounced dead two days later in the hospital.

An autopsy found a large amount of sand in the deceased’s body, signifying that she was drowned in shallow water. This reportedly aroused the police’s suspicion, as she was a licensed scuba diver and it was apparently the husband’s idea that they go to the beach.

The police added that Noda already had previous criminal records, having been arrested four times since December 2017 for theft and other offences, and was charged for theft three times.