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Topics: News, Money, Life, Sex and Relationships, Crime
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: News, Money, Life, Sex and Relationships, Crime
An Austrian couple reportedly divorced and remarried each other 12 times over a 40-year period.
Some might say it's kind of romantic (if not turbulent), but investigators are saying it's all been one big scam to make money.
The pair, who hail from Graz, Austria, first wed in 1982 and were happily married for six years. This was the unnamed woman's second marriage, with her first husband dying in 1981.
After her first husband died, the woman - who is now 73 - received a widow's pension from the government. However, when she remarried a year later, she was no longer eligible for such funding.
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She did, however, get a €27,000 ($28,405) 'severance payment' settlement to make up for this.
Fast forward six years, and the couple's marriage supposedly 'irreparably broke down' because of the husband's work as a lorry driver, meaning he wasn't home very much, Newsweek reported.
Their divorce meant the wife had her widow's pension reinstated once more, and you can probably see where this is going...
When the couple reconciled and remarried, the woman - again - received a €27,000 payment in compensation for her losing her widow's pension.
Seemingly catching on to the somewhat easy payout, the pair went on to divorce and remarry 12 times over four decades.
In total, the unnamed woman is said to have received a whopping €326,000 ($342,971) in payouts.
The most recent divorce was in May 2022, but the court refused to reinstate the 73-year-old's widow's pension again. She then started the legal process of suing the pension fund.
Her case was dismissed earlier this year though after the true nature of her marriage to her 12-time husband came to light.
The Supreme Court ruled that 'the repeated marriage and subsequent divorce from the same spouse is abusive if the marriage was never broken and the divorces only took place in order to establish a claim to a widow's pension'.
Since then a fraud investigation has begun and a trial is expected to follow suit.
In the eyes of the court, the couple are still legally together despite having divorced (again) two years ago, says Bild.
Sadly, it's not uncommon for people to use the legal process of marrying someone as a means of fraud - which one woman in the UK learnt the hard way.
Megan Clarke was set to marry Lord Bertie Underwood, but she grew suspicious when letters to their home under different names kept appearing.
She went on to discover that her husband-to-be was a con artist named Robert Madejski and that he'd racked up $40,000 worth of debt in credit cards in her name.
Fortunately Megan found out about his schemes before they made it down the aisle and he went on to be arrested.