An Italian citizen is being investigated for fraud against the social security system and hiding a corpse after allegedly disguising himself as his deceased mother to receive her pension.
The man, from Borgo Virgilio, near the city of Mantua, in northern Italy, allegedly wore a wig to imitate his mother’s hairstyle and used makeup and jewelry to deceive city council employees.
The suspect will have received thousands of euros in pension payments after his mother’s death in 2022.
Instead of reporting the death, he hid his mother’s body at home, which was only discovered at the beginning of this month, when the 56-year-old man once again disguised himself as his mother to try to renew his identity document at the local town hall.
Authorities compared a photograph of the mother with that of the son, inspected the man’s home and found her body hidden in the laundry room.
Francesco Aporti, president of the Chamber of Borgo Virgilio, told the Corriere della Sera that the man entered the city hall dressed as “an old lady” and dragging his feet. “She wore lipstick, nail polish, old jewelry and earrings, and had short dark brown hair,” he specified.
The man also tried to imitate a female voice, “but occasionally let out a masculine tone”, added the mayor.
Upon closer inspection, a local authority employee noticed that the man’s neck “was a little too thick”, “even the wrinkles were strange” and “the skin on his hands didn’t look like that of an 85-year-old woman”.
According to the Courierthe man is an unemployed nurse who, thanks to his mother’s retirement and three properties, had an annual income of 53 thousand euros.
This case is not unprecedented in Italy. In 2023, it was discovered that a man in Verona had kept his mother’s body at home for five years to receive her makeover.