BIELEFELD, GERMANY — A sad human reality is that death often brings out the worse in people, be they relatives, friends, or complete strangers. This is especially true when material wealth is involved. Police in the city of Bielefeld, Germany are currently looking for a group of scammers who have been targeting widows.According to the Bielefeld police force, the women report having received invoices which claim to concern debts left by their recently deceased husbands.

The receipts concern pornography allegedly purchase by the men prior to their deaths. Only problem is, the mail-order company that the invoices claim resides in the northern town of Delmenhorst – doesn’t exist.

Widows and other relatives all over Germany have been sent the invoices, which likely were expected to raise big bucks for the scammers who counted on society’s imposition of sex-related shame to keep the recipients quiet and compliant.

“The perpetrators evidently assumed the relations would be so embarrassed to discover that they had a dirty old man in the family that they would pay up quietly,” concludes an investigating detective.