Bellydancing video exposes woman who claimed disability benefits for 40 years

An Italian woman who claimed disability benefits for nearly 40 years has been caught out after police found a video of her bellydancing.

The woman, from Sicily, was receiving more than €800 a month from the state after faking physical and mental disabilities, including a purported “inability to respond to external stimuli”.

She had been receiving the monthly cheques since 1983, police said.

Her success at cheating the system came to an abrupt end when officers found images of her on social media living an apparently happy and healthy life, including enjoying bellydancing lessons.

Police released a photo of her dressed in a salmon pink bellydancing outfit, her arms thrown out energetically as she practiced her moves.

They found photos of her shopping at the supermarket and enjoying trips to the seaside.

Officers tapped her phone – a common practice in Italy – and intercepted her telling a friend that when she received pills for her alleged condition from a doctor, she would simply throw them away.

Suspicions were aroused when she was visited by a pair of new doctors, who doubted whether she had any physical or mental problems.

“I’m about to lose everything thanks to those two cretins,” she told a friend.

“The woman was totally autonomous in her day-to-day life and able to look after herself without any help,” police said in a statement.

The 67-year-old, from the town of Termini Imerese, has been accused of defrauding public finances by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza police. They have seized from her assets worth nearly 206,000 euros.

‘Just the tip of the iceberg’

Sicilians applauded the finance police for rumbling the woman’s cheating of the welfare system.

But there were many who asked how she had been able to get away with the charade for so long.

“They should have confiscated assets from the doctors who signed the disability certificate. Cases like this are just the tip of the iceberg. Disability boards often turn a blind eye to their friends,” one reader wrote on the website of Il Giornale di Sicilia, a local newspaper.

Italians have a long and inglorious record of trying to cheat the welfare system.

Two years ago, more than 30 people in Sicily were placed under investigation for allegedly scamming hundreds of thousands of euros from the State after submitting false claims for non-existent medical conditions.

The system relied on doctors and welfare officers granting false certificates to patients, who were obliged to give them money in return.

Supposedly blind people have been caught happily riding motorbikes or reading newspapers at pavement cafes.