Russian Fraudster Turns Up 13 Years After 'Death'

Thirteen years after a Russian official convicted of fraud was declared dead, she has turned up very much alive. Marianna Stupina, once a top housing official in Russia's Astrakhan region, vanished in 2012 after receiving a seven-year sentence, reports People, citing Russian media outlets Komsomolskaya Pravda and Izvestia. She then concocted an elaborate ruse to fake her own death, according to prosecutors. She allegedly fled to Tatarstan, monitored missing-persons reports until a woman with a similar appearance turned up dead, then had her husband falsely identify the body as hers to secure a death certificate.

Stupina then allegedly used a photocopy of someone else's passport to assume another identity and lived for years under the new name, per the Sun. The ruse unraveled amid a renewed investigation related to the original fraud case, according to the Russian accounts. Stupina's husband has reportedly confessed, and investigators say her daughter's phone showed regular contact. Stupina is now in custody serving her original sentence, and officials are weighing additional charges.