IL MATTINO (Italy)
ROME – With some quick thinking, she might have found a good response when the Carabinieri officers pulled her over.
Here’s my seeing-eye dog’s license…
It’s a Google car…
Oh, am I in the car? I thought this was the elevator…
Apparently the 66-year-old woman from the central Italian town of Ariccia wasn’t quite as quick on her feet as she’d been sly with the state. Busted! Authorities caught it all on videotape (see below): the woman who’d been claiming blindness since 2005 in order to collect a monthly 800-euro check was merrily driving her car around town, the daily Il Mattino reports.
It’s certainly not the first time someone in Italy thought that faking a disability was a short cut to easy money. Legendary Italian comic actor Roberto Benigni puts on his best moves in the film Johnny Stecchino when an insurance company auditor comes to check on his unusual (invented) malady.
In real life, it’s no joke. Police, who had first videotaped her crossing the street alone and signing paperwork, estimate that the woman had accumulated some 65,000 euros over the years. She was arrested on fraud charges.
