56yo man dressed up as his own dead mother in crazy scheme to cash in on her pension

An unnamed Italian man is under investigation as authorities claim that the 56-year-old had dressed up as his 85-year-old mother in order to collect roughly €53,000 ($60,000). It was then revealed that his mother had actually been dead for three years.

According to the Italian Newspaper, Corriere Della Sera (h/t PEOPLE), the man had dressed himself in a blouse and skirt worn by Graziella Dall’Oglio, his mother. He’d even gone as far as wearing a short brown wig and applying some of her makeup similar to Robin Williams in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire.

The man had previously been a nurse but is currently unemployed. When his mother died in 2022 he decided not to report her death but instead keep claiming the survivor’s pension which Dall’Oglio had been receiving from her late husband. He was also receiving income from real estate and land owned by the family. All in all the man had claimed roughly $60,000 worth of money over the three years.

The crazy scheme

Anyway, on November 16, Graziella Dall’Oglio was expected at the registry office in Borgo Virgilio to renew her identity card. Of course, she being dead for three years kind of meant that was impossible so the son hatched his mad plan to disguise himself as his mother and get that card renewed.

A clerk in the office contacted Borgo Virgilio Mayor Francesco Aporti as well as the police and an investigation into the matter was quickly launched. Aporti commented on the not-so-clever disguise, admitting it was somewhat convincing but there were more than a few telling giveaways.

“She looked very much like the woman in the photo on the ID. But there was something that didn’t convince the employee, like the hair on her neck, the heavy makeup, and it looked like beard holes were protruding from the greasepaint.”

The truth comes out

Video surveillance footage was analyzed and another oddity was noted as the woman was seen arriving in a car despite the fact that she didn’t have a driver’s license. Pretty quickly it became clear that the woman in the office was not Graziella Dall’Oglio and so they called the imposter into the back office and confronted them.

The son cracked under the pressure and like a Scooby-Doo villain, ditched the disguise and admitted to his dastardly plan. After his confession the man agreed to allow authorities to search his home where they found the mummified body of his mother in a room in the house. As of writing, the woman’s cause of death is unclear, it could well be natural causes but an autopsy will no doubt reveal all.