A 37 year-old woman pretended to be a 12 year-old autistic girl to trick a family into giving her a place to live, in an extraordinary deception that lasted more than a year.
Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira, now 38, has been jailed for fraud over the bizarre case in Brazil, after authorities discovered she had committed similar scams across the country.
Oliveira carried a doll, used a pacifier and drank from a baby bottle in her bid to convince an evangelical church-going couple in Joinville, Santa Carina, she was vulnerable and in need of help, Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported.
She explained away her adult physique by claiming it was the result of hormones forced on her by her parents in early childhood, police said per BBC Brasil.
In footage of Oliveira’s eventual arrest after the scam unravelled, she was seen wearing a Minnie Mouse t-shirt and hairband.
The remarkable ruse took place in 2025 when Oliveira began attending a church in the city of Joinville, initially presenting herself as an 18-year-old who was looking for work.
The local pastor introduced her to a middle-aged couple at the church, who took pity on her and invited her to stay with them. Presenting herself as “Gabriele,” Oliveira pretended to be a severely autistic girl, police said.
For 14 months, she lived with the couple and reportedly had all her expenses paid, a bedroom decorated with toys, and a party to celebrate her ‘12th birthday’. She even managed to convince them to pay for a course of weight-loss drugs.
It was her adoptive aunt who uncovered the fraud after becoming suspicious of Oliveira’s story. After searching online, she found reports of a similar case in Rio de Janeiro three years earlier.
Police eventually uncovered that she had used the same elaborate tactics on families in several other states, including São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, and Goiás, changing her name each time.
Social project director Viviane Henriques and nutritionist Renata Magalhaes were previous victims, having been scammed for a month in Rio de Janeiro in 2023.
Then 34 years-old, Oliveira calling herself “Duda”, a teenager who escaped abuse from a witch doctor father who had forced her into prostitution, the two friends told BBC Brasil.
The Good Samaritans rented a small apartment for her to live in and gave her “love, affection and food” until their suspicions grew and they went to the police.
“People find it absurd to believe,” Henriques said. “But, personally, she looked like a teenager, always wearing a coat and hood. She claimed to have autism and spoke in a very childlike way. We were heartbroken.”
Police reportedly found “how an autistic person behaves” among the searches on Oliveira’s phone.
Investigator Rodrigo Gusso said the case was a result of the woman's “high power of persuasion and empathy”.
“We believe that... there may be new victims,” Gusso told SBT News Brasil. “It is a crime this woman has been committing for many years, therefore the investigation continues.”
During her arrest, Oliveira is said to have dropped the act immediately and spoke to the officers in her normal, adult voice.
“It is clear that I deceived people; I lied. But I did not intend to scam anyone,” Oliveira later told them, as reported by The Times.
A judge in Santa Catarina rejected Oliveira’s defence that she was mentally ill and therefore not criminally responsible, concluding that she had acted deliberately and consciously.
Now convicted of fraud, she has been sentenced to a year-and-a-half in prison.
Oliveira’s deception has echoes of the Natalia Grace case, a Ukrainian orphan who was accused of masquerading as a child by her adoptive parents in the United States.
