What happened
A boy named Albert Ohayon was believed to have died when an earthquake struck Agadir, Morocco, in 1960. His parents, Moshe and Saada, searched the rubble and hospitals without finding him before emigrating to Israel with their other children.
In November 1970, two men in military uniforms arrived at the family's home in Ness Ziona and said one of them was Albert. The family accepted his claim despite repeatedly asking for identification. He lived with them for three months and said he had been brought to Israel by another family after the earthquake.
The story received front-page coverage in Yedioth Ahronoth, and the man was invited to a television interview alongside his supposed sister, Fanny. A family from Ofakim watching the broadcast identified him as their own son, Avi-Abraham, with whom they had lost contact months earlier.
Police surrounded the building when the family returned from the studio. Officers arrested the man at 2 a.m. at a relative's home in Haifa. He was later convicted of impersonation and sentenced to two years in prison.
Fanny Ohayon said the ordeal caused her father to suffer a heart attack and her mother to develop diabetes. Both parents later died. The family said they never spoke with the impostor's relatives.
