Woman who posed as 12-year-old girl and was adopted by family is jailed
A 38-year-old woman who posed as a 12-year-old girl has been jailed after it was revealed she deliberately created a fake identity to deceive a family into taking her in for over a year.
Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira, from Brazil, has been sentenced to one year, 10 months and 28 days in prison after being convicted of fraud and using a false identity.
The court, in Joinville, a city in northern Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil, found that the woman created a fictitious identity. She was treated as a daughter by a family, whose identities have not been made public.
They cared for her by providing food, medication, and accommodation.
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To pose as a child, the court heard that the woman behaved like a child by using baby bottles, pacifiers, and playing with toys.
Initially, the woman said her name was Gabriele, and claimed to be 18 and looking for work. However, after allegedly gaining the trust of the family, she claimed she was 11, and had suffered abuse and abandonment, as well as claiming to have a number of other health problems.
She claimed that her adult appearance came from allegedly being forced to take hormones during childhood.
Elsewhere, the family are said to have paid for the woman's weight loss treatment using the prescription drug tirzepatide, as well as throwing her a party for what they believed to be her 12th birthday.
The judge said that the woman's fraud allowed her to obtain 'the full cost of her own subsistence' while she lived with the family. It was also said that the 38-year-old 'acted consciously "to induce and maintain the victims in error"' to obtain material benefits.
However, things started to unravel when a suspicious relative found reports about the woman in other Brazilian states online. The family later contacted the police, and Amanda was arrested on June 2.
She admitted to authorities that she was from Ceará not Pará, also revealing that she had lied about her name and age.
It was then that Amanda was linked to other alleged scams in at least seven Brazilian states.
One alleged victim, nutritionist Renata Magalhaes, claimed Amanda had used the name 'Duda' when they met in Rio de Janeiro in 2023. Again, she alleges Amanda used a similar story, that she claimed to be an autistic teenager who had suffered abuse.
"Her phone was full of searches. She researched how an autistic person behaves and how to make drawings to move evangelical people," Renata claimed.
"I have seen many people laughing and making jokes on the internet, but she is a fraudster, a narcissist, a dangerous woman. She is a person who puts on a character like a coat and creates a totally fake narrative."
It's also said that Amanda was allegedly using a false identity during the Covid-19 pandemic, going by the name of 'Emily'. Here, she allegedly claimed to be a 13-year-old girl, who was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.
At the time, it is believed Amanda would have been around 32 years old. One woman claimed to have gotten 'Emily' written on her wrist after making a bond with the 'child'.
"It is clear that I deceived people, I lied. But I did not intend to scam anyone," Amanda has previously said.
Her defence echoed this, saying her false identity was a 'survival strategy' and not 'deliberate fraud'.
"It was the way she found to survive. But she has been a vulnerable person for more than 20 years," her lawyer, Lucio Sousa, said.
Her defence has rejected the conviction.
Topics: World News, Parenting
Kiesha Dosanjh