A wealthy Portuguese bachelor who had no children left his fortune to 70 strangers who he selected at random from a telephone book, a newspaper reported.

Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara drew up his unusual will in 1988 in front of two witnesses at a Lisbon registry office, 13 years before he died of natural causes at the age of 42, weekly newspaper Sol reported.

"I am sure he just wanted to create confusion by leaving his belongings to strangers. That amused him," one of the witnesses and one of the man's few friends, Anibal Castro Vila, told the newspaper.

"The registry office employee was shocked when he asked for the Lisbon telephone book and started choosing names at random. She asked him several questions to check his sanity but he was really lucid," he said.

Da Camara's heirs are still waiting for his estate, which includes a 12-room apartment in the centre of Lisbon, a house near the historic northern town of Guimaraes, a car and nearly 25,000 euros (32,000 US dollars) in a bank account, to be divided up.

Most initially doubted the authenticity of the letter informing them that they had been named as heirs by a total stranger.

"I became frightened because I thought it was a scam. Every day you hear of pranks people play on old people," said 76-year-old Helena, one of the heirs.

Da Camara was born into a wealthy Lisbon family in 1959 and never married or held a job. He led a solitary life spending most of his time indoors reading and listening to music, his neighbours told the newspaper.