An Australian couple has been found to have been involved in a fraud scheme through fake marriages and divorces for almost 40 years.
Australian couple's fraud
An Australian couple used a pension card that had been in their accounts for more than a year to defraud them of millions of dollars through fake marriages and divorces.
The 73-year-old woman began the fraud when she began receiving a widow's pension after her first husband died in 1981.
Although widow's pension is usually stopped if she remarries, the woman then discovered that a one-time compensation payment is paid during subsequent marriages and started the fraud.
She married another man and began a cycle of fraud by marrying and divorcing each other from 1988 onwards.
The couple have been married and divorced more than a dozen times in 43 years, but have since resorted to fraud.
Each marriage lasted about three years, and then divorced due to their husband's frequent work trips.
This has resulted in the women receiving multiple widow's pensions, totaling more than $342,000 in compensation.
The fraud came to light
Their fraud came to light when pension officials became suspicious of the continuity of their marital history.
After their most recent "divorce" in May 2022, the pension fund refused to reinstate the woman's benefits.
The court condemned the couple, who sued, and said that repeatedly marrying and divorcing the same person was an abuse.
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