"Catch me if you can": Wanda Podgurski, Calif. fraud convict, taunts with tweets, then gets caught

(CBS/AP) SAN DIEGO - Wanda Podgurski didn't show up to hear her guilty verdict for insurance and disability fraud, or her 20-year prison sentence. Instead, she left Southern California, and taunted authorities with tweets, including, "Catch me if you can."

They did.

Now, the 60-year-old woman who hid for more than five months is also charged with failing to appear in the original fraud case, CBS affiliate KFMB reports.

Podgurski was captured on the Fourth of July in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, a popular retirement spot for American expatriates just 15 miles south of San Diego. She pleaded not guilty Monday on the 'failure to appear' charge back in January.

KFMB reports that Podgurski was convicted at that time of 29 felony counts related to an insurance and disability scam, in which she faked injuries and collected payments of more than $650,000 from insurance companies.

The district attorney's office said Podgurski held six insurance policies and made claims with all six after reporting that she fell at her home in August 2006. Private investigators working for the insurers reported seeing her walk stairs without assistance and drive to the store.

Authorities said Podgurski traveled around the world at a time when she was supposedly disabled.

Podgurski was sentenced in absentia last month to 20 years and four months in state prison.  She was also ordered to pay more than $1 million in fines and restitution.

According to KFMB, three weeks after her initial tweet on June 5, Podgurski's feed read, "'Help find me before I con anyone else." Two other posts were links to stories about her vanishing act.

Podgurski's Twitter profile recently read, "On the run possibly in Iran."

The district attorney's office declined to say how authorities tracked her down, saying only that information from the Twitter account was turned over to its Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Team, known by the acronym Catch.