- This is one of those bizarre stories that you couldn’t make up if you tried.
Adoption can quite literally save a child’s life. Kids need a secure environment to grow up and fly right, and adopting a disadvantaged child is a great way to give them a new start.
With that in mind, it is pretty awkward when the little girl you adopted turns out to be a middle-aged woman.
Brazilian authorities recently uncovered one of the most outlandish identity fraud cases in the country’s, if not the world’s, history. At the center of the events is a 12-year-old girl called Gabriela.
Or that’s who she claimed to be, anyway. In reality, she was Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira, a 37-year-old woman.
Oliveira faked being a mentally disabled, physically abused young child to get an unidentified family to adopt her. She lived with them, pretending to be a child, for more than a year before her adoptive parents realized what was going on.
But perhaps the strangest part is that this isn’t the first time Oliveira has done this. She’s a repeat offender who has pulled several similar stunts before.
Now, Oliveira has been jailed for identity fraud. She is awaiting a possible mental evaluation for an explanation of why she keeps attempting to get people to adopt her.
Setting the Scene
The first seeds of Oliveira’s bizarre plot were sown in Joinville, the largest city in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. She set her mind to fooling a local, unsuspecting pastor into believing that she was actually an abused small girl.
Oliveira had constructed an elaborate backstory for herself. According to her, she was Gabriela, a 12-year-old from the state of Pará.
Gabriela supposedly was severely autistic, a claim that helped Oliveira dodge more complex questions about her past by pretending she didn’t understand them. She told the pastor that she ran away from her abusive family and was now homeless and looking for a place to go.
That made-up history of abuse also explained her appearance. To be sure, Oliveira looks her age and not like a 12-year-old.
However, she claimed that her “father” had forced her to take hormones and drugs between severe beatings, which had permanently aged and altered her body.
That would be quite the tragic story if it were true. The goodhearted pastor, however, believed every word and started searching for a foster home for “Gabriela” while supporting her financially from parish funds.
Loving Family
Soon enough, the pastor found a family to take Gabriela/Oliveira in. Once she got in the family, she did everything she could to make herself appear a “child who needed to be taken care of,” local media reported.
She would speak in an exaggerated, high-pitched voice, which – while not necessarily sounding like a genuine 12-year-old – was excused as an effect of her supposed disability. To further sell her story, Oliveira behaved like a much younger child than she was portraying.
She would drink milk out of a baby bottle and act distressed unless she was given a pacifier to suck on. At night, she’d fake experiencing night terrors, unless she had her comfort blanket to snuggle with.
Meanwhile, the family did everything to provide for “Gabriela.” They paid for her medication (including obesity drugs), gave her the love and attention she craved, and even threw her a 12th birthday party.
After Oliveira had been with the family for 14 months, they started looking into legally adopting her. It seems they never suspected anything was off with their little girl.
Repeat Offender
The relatives of the family did, however. Something about the “child” seemed off to them, and eventually, one relative asked the local police to take a peek at the girl’s history.
Following a brief investigation, the police found nothing wrong. Or perhaps I should say they found nothing whatsoever, because prior to her contact with the aforementioned pastor, Gabriela didn’t exist.
What they did find was Oliveira’s fascinating criminal record. It turned out that this was far from the first time she had impersonated a minor.
She had enacted a similar scheme three times in different states of Brazil. Oliveira had attempted to get herself adopted in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais.
Those plots had been as carefully constructed as this one. For instance, in 2023, she stabbed herself with needles more than 100 times to convincingly portray a victim of witchcraft rituals.
Following the revelations, Oliveira was arrested and reportedly confessed to the plot. She has been charged with fraud and identity theft and booked into Joinville Prison.
Now, Oliveira is awaiting a trial. Before that, though, her attorney has requested a psychiatric evaluation to find out whether she can be held legally responsible.