Brazil woman wheels in elderly man's corpse into bank to sign loan for her, calls him 'uncle'

Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes wanted a loan of $3,400.

In a shocking development from Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian woman wheeled in a corpse of an elderly man into a bank to get him to co-sign a loan, New York Post reported. The woman, identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes, was captured standing to the deceased who was in a wheelchair. She was also trying to hold up his head, according to a video first aired by TV Globo, Brazil’s largest broadcaster.

In the clip, Nunes was seen talking to the man whom she referred to as “uncle” and asking him to sign documentsthat would allow her to take out a loan of $3,400. “Uncle, are you listening? You need to sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, because I can’t sign for you,” the woman was heard saying in the video while trying to get him to hold a pen. She also instructed him to hold it “hard”.

“Sign so you don’t give me any more headaches, I can’t take it anymore,” she added. A bank employee even tried to point out that the man looked “pale” and seemed to be “not well”. However, Nunes dismissed his concerns.

“He is like that. He doesn’t say anything,” she said. “Uncle, do you want to go to the [hospital] again?” she appeared to question the corpse.

However, the bank staff didn’t spare any time and called the police on the woman. The police arrived and arrested Nunes. It was later revealed that the man, identified as 68-year-old Paulo Roberta Braga, had been dead for several hours before his trip to the bank.

“She tried to pretend to get him to sign the loan. He already entered the bank dead,” Police Chief Fabio Luiz told TV Globo. “The main thing is to continue the investigation to identify other family members, and find out more about this loan.”

According to the report in New York Post, the police claimed that they would be investigating the circumstances of Braga’s death and will also determine if Nunes is actually his niece as she was claiming. Cops will also investigate if other relatives were involved in the alleged attempt to commit bank fraud.

If convicted, Nunes could face charges of theft through fraud, or embezzelement, and abuse of corpse.