A man who kept his mother’s body in a refrigerator and used her seal to claim welfare benefits for five years after her death has been indicted on forgery and fraud charges, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors recently closed their investigation into the case and found that the suspect had received various government subsidies in the name of his mother following her death in October 2017.
According to prosecutors, the suspect managed to fraudulently obtain NT$751,808 (US$24,587) before authorities were alerted to the situation in August 2022.
Investigators began looking into the case after the man’s 14-year-old daughter — who had reported to the Social Welfare Department of the New Taipei City Government that she had been abused by her father since she was in the fourth grade — told police that her grandmother was “hiding in the fridge.”
According to the indictment issued on Dec. 28, 2022, the man kept his mother’s body in a fridge at a rented apartment in New Taipei’s Bali District and did not register her death with the local household registration office in order to continue claiming her welfare benefits, including a living allowance for low-income family members and rent subsidies.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel