A woman in Brazil was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of theft by fraud and violating a corpse after she brought her uncle to a bank to sign a loan agreement, local media outlets reported.
She had raised suspicion after she entered a small branch of Itaú Bank in a Rio suburb with a man in a wheelchair, who she called her uncle, local news organization O Dia reported, per a Business Insider translation.
The woman, named by local media as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes, reportedly told the clerk they were there to sign off on a 17,000 reais ($3,250) loan.
In security camera footage shared by O Dia, the woman can be seen picking up the man’s hand and repositioning his head to try to get him to sign the document in front of him.
“Uncle, are you listening? You need to sign. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, because I can’t sign for you,” Nunes can be heard saying in the video.
“He doesn’t say anything, that’s just how he is,” she tells the clerk when he doesn’t reply. “If you’re not okay, I’m going to take you to the hospital.”
But the man’s unresponsive nature and lolling head caused concern among bank employees who called the local ambulance services.
On arriving, the doctors confirmed that the 68-year-old man had been dead for several hours, O Dia reported.
His body was taken to a morgue, and Nunes was arrested on suspicion of attempted theft by fraud and violating a corpse.
The woman’s lawyers argue that the man, Paulo Roberto Braga, died at the bank in his wheelchair and said they had witnesses who would testify at the appropriate time, Brazil’s national newspaper Correio Braziliense reported.
A preliminary forensic analysis concluded that Braga had died between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday from breathing difficulties and heart failure.
Nunes had arrived at the bank at 1:02 p.m, the report noted, according to Correio Braziliense.
An expert who signed the report said that there was not enough medical or technical evidence at this point to confirm whether Braga died on his way into or inside the bank or had already been dead.
However, the autopsy also indicated that he had likely died while lying down due to the position of blood clots in his neck.
The police were not ruling out the possibility that more people were involved.
Brazil’s economic stagnation
Brazil’s economy has stagnated in recent months, with growth flatlining in the final quarter of 2023 amid sky-high interest rates. The country, the largest economy in South America, currently has a rate of close to 11%.
“The stagnation in Brazil’s GDP in the fourth quarter and the decline in household consumption confirmed that the economy lost momentum sharply,” Capital Economics’ chief emerging markets economist William Jackson said in a note in March, per Reuters.
