An Austrian couple who married and divorced each other a total of 12 times in the last 43 years is currently under investigation for financial fraud.

Police in Vienna, Austria, are currently investigating the bizarre case of a couple who got married and then divorced 12 times over a period of 43 years in order to take advantage of a legal loophole that allowed them to receive substantial amounts of money. The elderly couple is suspected of having arranged every divorce strictly on paper so the wife could receive the 27,000 euro ($28,300) severance pay she was awarded after her first husband’s death in 1981. They took advantage of a loophole in Austrian legislation that allowed widows to retain the severance pay as long as she wasn’t married. Every two and a half years, she was to receive 2.5 times her annual widow’s pension, so every three years or so she and her second husband would divorce so she could receive the money, and then they would remarry.

The couple’s fraudulent tactic only came to light in May 2022 when the Pension Insurance Institute refused to grant the widow’s pension again, despite her 12th divorce from her second husband. A simple investigation revealed that the couple had been divorcing and then quickly remarying every three years on average, just when the woman was supposed to receive her severance pay.

An investigation by the Graz Criminal Investigation Department revealed that de serial divorcees lived together in the same household, cooked together, and even shared the marital bed. According to their neighbors, most of whom had no idea about their divorcing habit, they were a model couple and had never separated. Their behavior inspired a law designed to close the loophole they had been exploiting for over four decades.

A ruling by the Supreme Court on March 12, 2024 states that “repeated marriage and subsequent divorce from the same spouse is an abuse of law if the marriage was never broken and the divorces only took place to establish a claim to a widow’s pension.” The couple is facing trial for fraud, with prosecutors alleging that they had pocketed 326,000 euros  ($341,000) in severance payments over the last 43 years.

On the bright side, the couple’s 12th divorce was not recognized by Austrian authorities, so the couple will face the accusations together.