The 42-year-old from the small town of Fichtenwalde, Brandenburg told police that two men aged about 20 broke into his dentist’s practice on March 26 and brutally attacked him.

He said they slammed his head against a door frame before trapping his left index finger in a pair of garden shears and demanding money. Despite giving them some cash, they cut off his finger and ran off, with his money and finger, he said.

But police failed to find any trace of the two robbers, and prosecutors now believe that he may have invented the entire scenario to get the six-figure insurance pay-out that losing a finger would get him, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper said on Monday.

Police could find neither the shears nor any trace of the two supposed robbers – and this despite the dentist providing them with a detailed photo-fit description of one his attacker’s teeth.

“We are investigating on suspicion of an attempted fraud and faking of a criminal offence,” public prosecutor spokesman Tom Köpping told the paper.

Police failed to find any evidence of the robbery and attack, even after using sniffer dogs in the area for days. It would also seem that the dentist had borrowed heavily to set up his practice.

The Local/jcw