Social media facial recognition is a game-changer for this kind of thing. You'd have to live as a hermit if you attempted to fake your death, because if you're in the background of a photo uploaded to the internet, game over.
He suggested that technology makes it easier for the fraudster to come up with the right details, whereas he often had to bluff when he was defrauding people.
I believe e.g. Facebook will try to automatically suggest tags for faces, but I don't think something like Twitter makes those recommendations.
https://www.facebook.com/help/122175507864081
> Here are some examples of how Facebook may use face recognition:
> Let you know when you might appear in photos or videos but haven't been tagged.
A good investigator is likely gonna find that a few friends-of-friends of the "deceased" play Mafia Wars and accept every friend request.