Judge: Woman Not Really Worth 300 Gazillion Dollars

A woman who was jailed for defrauding people by claiming to be the world’s wealthiest person has been ordered to pay restitution despite her plea for an adjournment so she could prove to the court that she really was worth a million billion trillion dollars.

Elda Beguinua told the court her net worth was “300 followed by 41 zeros,” but the judge was skeptical.

“When she tells me there are 22 caves in the Philippines, guarded by 10,000 workers, guarding a treasure of trillions of pounds in precious gems and gold, I do not believe her,” commented Judge Jeremy McMullen.

Beguinua, 63, who claims to be both a countess and a baroness, testified that her fortune included 4 billion pounds of gold, but prosecutors argued that this was “a ridiculous, make-believe amount.”

And the judge noted that during a previous hearing, “she herself acknowledged she was a number one fraudster and should be in the Guinness Book of Records.”

She was ordered to pay restitution of about $1.2 million.

Source: BBC News.

Image: Hiking Artist via Flickr.