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Paulo Roberto Braga

Reality surpassed fiction: a 42-year-old woman showed up at a bank office in Brazil accompanied by a dead man, whom she said was her niece and caregiver, to try to request a loan associated with the account of which he was the owner.

Incident Details
Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes, 42, this week took the lifeless body of Paulo Roberto Braga, 68, to a bank branch in Bangú, in the western part of Rio de Janeiro.

“He said he was alive and that he wanted to go collect the money. According to her, he just wanted to collect the money. So he asked her and she took him to pick it up,” Fábio Luiz de Sousa, delegate of the local police station, told Brazilian media.

Failed Attempt
The woman, who has been detained, intended to collect 17,000 reais (about 3,000 euros).

“One of the bank branch employees said that at first she thought the old man was very weak. When he approached the place where the service was being held, he told Paulo Roberto that his signature had to match that of his identity document.”

“However, when the old man had to sign, the employee said that he was not reacting, that he was pale and that he had no vital signs,” O Globo noted.

Consequences and Additional Details
The astonishing plan to use a lifeless body to take money from the bank was caught on video. The images show the woman’s attempts to get the dead man to sign the document, placing a pen between his fingers and moving his hand, attempts that failed.

“It doesn’t seem right,” says an employee in response to the woman’s repeated attempts to pretend that the dead man was alive. The woman held the old man’s head and spoke to him to the astonishment of the bank employees.

In recent years, this woman had collected 6,000 euros in government benefits from various social assistance programs. She insisted on taking the 17,000 reais before being detained by local police.