A Lithuanian Man in Spain Faked Heart Attacks Over 20 Times in Restaurants Just to Escape Paying His Bill
It sounds like the plot of a bizarre comedy movie, but it actually happened in Spain. In the city of Alicante, a 50-year-old man originally from Lithuania managed to pull off one of the strangest scams people there had ever seen. His trick was as outrageous as it was desperate—he pretended to have heart attacks in restaurants to avoid paying his bill. Not once, not twice, but more than twenty times.
The man’s routine was always the same. He would walk into a restaurant and order expensive meals, the kind of dishes that signal someone is out to enjoy life without worrying about the cost. Lobster, steak, whiskey—he didn’t shy away from luxury. But when the bill came to the table, instead of pulling out his wallet, he would clutch his chest dramatically, fall to the floor, and fake a medical emergency. Staff members, caught between concern for his health and confusion over the situation, would rush to help, often calling for an ambulance. By the time things settled down, the bill was forgotten, and the man had once again eaten for free.
At first, it worked. People naturally react with sympathy when they see someone in distress, and no restaurant owner wants to be the one accused of ignoring a genuine medical emergency. But as the months went by and the pattern repeated itself across different restaurants in Alicante, whispers began to spread. Owners shared stories, waiters compared notes, and eventually, the trickster’s reputation started to catch up with him.
The police became aware of his antics after multiple establishments reported the same bizarre scam. When officers investigated, they realized this wasn’t a case of misunderstanding or even a one-time stunt. This was a serial fraudster who had turned fake heart attacks into his personal way of dining out without ever paying. He had been arrested several times before but always found his way back into another restaurant, trying the same performance again.
What made this so shocking was how far he was willing to go to sell the act. Witnesses said he would collapse with convincing theatrics, sometimes even lying motionless on the floor until emergency services arrived. Restaurant staff, of course, had no way of knowing whether he was faking or truly in danger, so they responded with care every single time. Eventually, though, the law caught up with him, and now he faces the possibility of a prison sentence for his string of bizarre scams.
Locals in Alicante have been left shaking their heads at the absurdity of it all. On one hand, the man’s behavior is frustrating, even infuriating—he wasted emergency resources, tricked hard-working restaurant owners, and showed no regard for the panic he caused. On the other hand, the sheer audacity of his repeated performances has made the story a strange mix of crime and comedy. It’s the kind of tale that spreads quickly because people can hardly believe someone would go so far, so many times, just to avoid paying for dinner.
Stories like this highlight how creative, though misguided, human behavior can be when someone is determined to cheat the system. But while it may sound amusing on the surface, it is also a reminder of the strain such acts put on businesses and emergency responders. Every time this man faked a collapse, doctors and paramedics could have been attending to someone truly in need. And for the restaurants, already working hard to survive in a competitive industry, his antics meant wasted time, unpaid bills, and unnecessary stress.
Now, as he awaits the outcome of his legal troubles, his case has become one of the most unusual dining scams ever reported in Spain. It’s a story that mixes absurd humor with very real consequences, and one that locals in Alicante won’t forget anytime soon.
