A 50-year-old man was arrested in Alicante, Spain, in 2024, after police discovered that he had faked heart attacks in at least 20 restaurants to get away without paying. He ate normally, waited for the bill, and then: chest pain, groans, sometimes collapsing to the floor. Emergency services would arrive and he would disappear.
Some say this has no nuance at all: it is premeditated, repeated fraud that consumed resources meant for real emergencies. Others, however, call it “brilliant in the worst way” and debate whether the punishment should be proportional to how ridiculous the method was.
Does he deserve an exemplary sentence, or does the absurdity of the case put it in a category of its own?