In a bizarre case in northern Italy, a 56-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly disguising himself as his deceased mother for nearly three years to continue collecting her pension.
The unusual fraud, now widely referred to as the “Mrs Doubtfire scandal,” was uncovered in Borgo Virgilio, near Mantua, after the man attempted to renew his mother’s ID despite her death in 2022.
According to reports, the unemployed former nurse hid his mother’s body inside their home instead of reporting her death. Authorities later discovered her remains in a sleeping bag stored in the laundry room.
“She probably died of natural causes, but that will be established by the postmortem. It is a very strange story and very, very sad,” said the town’s mayor, Francesco Aporti.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the man meticulously copied his mother’s physical appearance and behaviour to maintain the illusion that she was alive. He allegedly wore wigs, women’s clothing, lipstick, nail polish and jewellery in an effort to pass himself off as the 85-year-old woman.
“He wore lipstick, nail polish, jewellery, and old-fashioned earrings, and had a dark brown wig,” Mayor Aporti said. He added that the man also tried to adopt a female voice, “but occasionally a few masculine notes slipped out”.
It was during an in-person appointment to renew the woman’s identity card earlier this month that a municipal employee noticed inconsistencies in the disguise. The worker pointed out that the person’s neck appeared too thick, the wrinkles looked unnatural, and the skin on the hands did not match that of an elderly woman. The clerk alerted police, who soon confirmed the deception by comparing photographs of the real woman with the disguised man.
Investigators say the fraud allowed the accused to collect around €53,000 per year in survivor pension benefits, along with rental income from family-owned properties, amounting to roughly $61,000 annually. Authorities are now probing whether he engaged in additional forgery to continue accessing the funds.
The man is currently in custody and faces multiple criminal charges, including fraud against the state, identity theft, forging official documents, and concealing a corpse. Police also said he allegedly removed fluids from the body using syringes in an attempt to slow decomposition. A full autopsy has been ordered to determine the exact cause and timeline of the woman’s death.
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