AN 85-YEAR-OLD Austrian woman cut almost €1 million into tiny pieces in an apparent attempt to spite her heirs.
Prosecutors described how €950,000, as well as savings accounts books, were found shredded on her bed after she died in a retirement home.
State prosecutor Erich Habitzl confirmed the discovery – first reported in the Kurier daily – but said that there was nothing he could do for the relatives. Habitzl told AFP:
The damage of the money in the woman’s property is not a criminal matter, so we have not begun any investigation.
Kurier reported however that the woman’s surviving family will have the last laugh, with Austria’s central bank (OeNB) saying it will replace all the cash.
“If the heirs can only find shreds of money and if the origin of the money is assured, then of course it can all be replaced,” Friedrich Hammerschmidt, deputy head of the OeNB cashier division, told Kurier.
“If we didn’t pay out the money then we would be punishing the wrong people.”
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