“He's my uncle, he has to sign a loan.”

He took a dead man to the bank and tried to get the corpse to sign a €3,000 loan. It's a surreal story set in Brazil involving a woman named Erika de Souza Vieira, who was arrested in Rio de Janeiro.. The woman appeared in a bank in the Bango area with a man sitting in a wheelchair. He told employees he was his uncle: the man was supposed to sign documents to authorize a loan for his alleged niece. But to everyone, the situation seemed anomalous. The man, identified as 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga, had died a few hours ago, as it was later discovered. The woman tried to deceive the institute's employees through an incredible “act”: she grabbed her uncle's head and repeatedly “invited” him to sign the documents. One employee said: “I don't think he feels well, he doesn't look good at all.” “It's always like this,” Erika de Souza Vieira said. “Do you want me to take you back to the hospital?” the old man asked without receiving a clear answer.

It was inevitable to call the police, who intervened and arrested the woman. “He knew he was dead. He had been dead for at least two hours,” Fabio Luiz Souza, one of the investigators, told Bom Día Rio radio. “In my 22 years in the police, I've never seen a story like this.”

Ana Carla de Souza Correa, the woman's lawyer, suggested another version: “The facts did not happen as they were told. Paolo was alive when he arrived at the bank. Everything will be clarified, and we believe in Erica's innocence.”