Woman pocketed dead mother-in-law’s pension

4 August 2004

MADRID – The Spanish High Court has confirmed a 30-month jail sentence on a woman who claimed her dead mother-in-law’s pension for more than 20 years.

At one point the accused even presented another woman as the deceased, so she could carry on collecting the money.

The High Court’s decision confirms a sentence carried out by a Barcelona court in April 2002, which also ordered her to repay EUR 81,903 to Social Security and a bank that handled the pensions.

The accused woman was said to have failed to report the death of her mother-in-law in January 1980 and continued collecting her pension until 2002.

Between 1998 and 2000 she even presented “various certificates’ backed by a “sworn statement” to the bank to show that her mother-in-law was still ‘alive’.

When the Social Security temporarily suspended payments in 2000, she went to their offices with a friend, using fingerprints to sign the petition on the grounds that the impostor was “unable to sign”.

The High Court judge decided the woman set out “to cheat” as proved by the false statements she had presented. It was “a deceitful operation carried out over a period of 20 years.”

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news