A Brazilian family was left heartbroken after falling victim to a scheme orchestrated by a con artist who pretended to be a 12-year-old girl in need of adoption, according to local authorities.
The woman, identified as Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira, 37, allegedly masqueraded as a young autistic girl named Gabrielle for over a year. She reportedly employed various tactics to maintain her deception, such as using a baby bottle, a pacifier, and a comfort cloth, and even staged night terrors to make her act more convincing to the family in Santa Catarina, as per the investigation by Brazilian officials.
“I was tricked by someone who pretended to be a 12-year-old,” shared a family member who fell victim to the deception. The statement was given in Portuguese and reported by local news outlet Jornal Ipanema, which kept the individual’s identity confidential.
“I offered her love, care, and food. There was no sign that made me suspect anything,” the family member continued.
The con began when Oliveira allegedly approached a church in Joinville, Santa Catarina, introducing herself to a pastor as a runaway child named Gabriela, claiming she had fled an abusive household in Pará.
The congregation then began supporting her financially and eventually connected her with a local family, who took her in and grew to love who they thought was a vulnerable child in need.
Over the course of the next 14 months, Oliveira had the family actively adopting her, and allegedly played on their kindness and sympathy — getting them to pay for her medications and even plan her a 12th birthday party.
She convinced the volunteers and the families she conned that the reason she looks nearly 40 years old in the face is due to experiencing violent abuse and forced hormone treatments in her childhood that aged her prematurely, which most just believed, according to VICE.
However, the scheme unraveled when a relative grew suspicious and decided to search online for similar cases. The family member quickly discovered that the little girl whose 12th birthday they were preparing to celebrate was, in fact, a 37-year-old woman tied to a string of nearly identical cons in roughly seven states across Brazil, the outlet reported.
That relative then called police after her discovery, who arrested Oliveira at the family’s home on June 3.
After her arrest last Wednesday, the grown woman admitted to the scheme and confessed to investigators that she had similarly conned several other families throughout at least seven Brazilian states, according to the outlet.
After Oliveira’s sick scheme was exposed, a Rio de Janeiro volunteer told local media that the fraudster had reached out to her on social media in 2023, claiming her father had forced her into prostitution, practiced witchcraft and that she was in need of help.
When Oliveira showed up in person, the volunteer said she appeared to be an overweight, autistic teenager who spoke like a child.
She then fled Rio after volunteers discovered needles horrifyingly protruding through her skin from underneath, prompting those she was conning to arrange a hospital imaging test.
During that test, it was revealed that Oliveira shockingly had more than 200 needles in her body — which investigators said she had inserted into herself in an effort to make the abuse claims more convincing.
“The doctor looked shocked and told us he had worked in the field for years and had never seen anything like it,” a volunteer told The Mirror about the needles in Oliveira’s body.
After the wild discovery, Oliveira fled and continued her scheme in other parts of the country.
Each time, she would present herself as a child who had fled abuse, sex trafficking, or even religious cults, and regularly gave fake names, fabricated stories, and imitated childlike behavior to gain sympathy and persuade families, churches and social workers to shelter and financially support her.
She had also been previously convicted of false identity offenses in the Brazilian state of Goiás, and has not yet served her sentence for those offenses.
Oliveira was charged with fraud and identity theft and is now in Joinville Women’s Prison awaiting trial.
A judge also granted the defense’s request for a psychiatric evaluation, arguing that Oliveira may not be fully responsible for her actions due to her mental health condition.