In a bizarre case of deception that spanned three years, an Italian man has been arrested for allegedly disguising himself as his own dead mother to continue collecting her pension payments.
The Macabre Discovery
Local authorities in the northern Italian town of Borgo Virgilio made a grisly discovery after growing suspicious about a pensioner's identity. Officers visited the home of an 82-year-old woman and found her mummified body wrapped in sleeping bags inside a laundry room closet.
The woman had reportedly died in 2022, but her son, who is currently unemployed, never reported her passing to authorities. Instead, he continued to pocket her pension payments, worth approximately $90,000 annually, accumulating an estimated total of $270,000 over the three-year period.
The Failed Disguise
The elaborate scheme began to unravel when the elderly woman's identity card expired. Desperate to maintain the flow of money, the son went to extraordinary lengths to assume his mother's identity.
According to police reports, the man applied makeup, cut his hair, and dressed in his mother's clothing to pose as her for a renewal appointment at a social insurance agency office. Surveillance footage captured the man walking with a walking stick while wearing one of his mother's dresses.
Despite his efforts to perfect the impersonation, the agency employee processing the application became suspicious and alerted police. The agent's vigilance ultimately exposed the long-running fraud.
Legal Consequences and Ongoing Investigation
The man now faces serious criminal charges including concealing a corpse, fraud against the state, impersonation, and forgery of a public document. He has been remanded in custody while authorities continue their investigation.
Local police have ordered an autopsy to determine how the woman died, though there's no immediate suggestion of foul play in her actual death. The case has shocked the local community and raised questions about pension verification systems.
This extraordinary case of pension fraud and identity theft serves as a stark reminder of the lengths some individuals will go to for financial gain, even when it involves their own deceased family members.
