Italian man ‘disguised as dead mother to claim her pension’

An Italian man is being investigated for welfare fraud and hiding a corpse after he allegedly disguised himself as his dead mother – including imitating her hairstyle with a wig and wearing makeup and jewelry – to claim her pension.

The man from Borgo Virgilio, near the northern Italian city of Mantua, is said to have demanded pension payments amounting to several thousand euros after his mother died in 2022. Instead of reporting her death, he is said to have hidden her body in his house.

It was only at the beginning of the month, when the 56-year-old allegedly disguised himself as his mother to have her ID card renewed at the local council office, that the police were alerted by a suspicious employee.

Authorities compared an official photo of the deceased woman with that of her son. Police then inspected the man’s home and found her body hidden in the laundry room, investigators said.

Francesco Aporti, the mayor of Borgo Virgilio, told Corriere della Sera that the man shuffled into the municipal office dressed as an “old woman.” “He wore lipstick, nail polish, jewelry and old-fashioned earrings and had a shock of dark brown hair,” he said.

The man tried to imitate a female voice, “but occasionally a few male tones would slip out,” the mayor said.

Upon closer inspection, the council worker noticed the man’s neck was “a little too thick and even the wrinkles were strange,” he added. “The skin on his hands did not appear to be that of an 85-year-old woman.”

Corriere reported that the man was an unemployed nurse who had an annual income of €53,000 (£46,500) thanks to his mother’s pension and three properties.

It is not the first time in Italy that the body of a deceased pensioner has been hidden by his descendants in order to claim his benefits. In 2023, it was discovered that a man in Verona had kept his mother’s body at home for five years while he applied for her pension.

A similar discovery was made that same year in a town in Puglia: in this case, a son had managed to hide his father’s body at home for ten years.