Brazilian woman caught on camera puppeteering dead man to sign for a loan: 'Uncle, are you listening?'

A woman was arrested Tuesday after wheeling a corpse into a South American bank and attempting to take out a loan in the decedent's name.

Brazilian police indicated 68-year-old Paulo Robert Braga had long been dead when Érika de Souza Vieira Nunes, 42, rolled him into a Rio de Janeiro bank in a wheelchair, talked to him as though he were still among the living, then attempted to puppeteer a signature out of him for a $3,234 loan.

According to the Brazilian news outlet G1, bank employees quickly became suspicious of Nunes' behavior. There were, after all, a few dead giveaways that something was amiss.

In footage of the incident captured by bank employees, Nunes can be seen attempting to keep Braga's head upright and engaging in a clearly one-sided conversation.

"Uncle, are you listening? You need to sign. If you don't sign it, there's no way," Nunes can be heard saying in her native tongue. "I can't sign it for you. I'll do what I can do."

"You hold your chair very strong there," Nunes says to the corpse. She proceeds to ask one of the tellers, "Didn't he hold the door there just now?"

Feigning frustration with Braga's lack of cooperation, Nunes says, "Sign so you don't give me any more headaches. I can't take it anymore."

According to a translation provided by USA Today, one teller says in the video, "I don't think this is legal. He doesn't look well. He's very pale."

Nunes, who claimed to be the dead man's niece, says, "He is like this."

The grim borrower then suggests to Braga, whose mouth is wide open and eyes are glassy, "If you are not well, you will go to the hospital."

Bank attendants ultimately called the police who promptly detained Nunes.

Police chief Fábio Souza of the 34th Police Station confirmed to CNN Brazil that Nunes was charged with attempted theft by fraud and abuse of a corpse. If convicted of the latter, then Nunes could face up to three years in prison and a fine.

Nunes reportedly expressed no remorse in her interviews with police and told officials that Braga had expired while in the bank. Police are not buying her story in part because medical examiners found indications the elderly man had been dead for at least two hours prior to his posthumous banking experience.

Authorities are reportedly still waiting to confirm Braga's cause of death, indicating they will open a homicide investigation if they suspect foul play.

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