A 38-year-old Brazilian woman has been jailed for 18 months after posing as a 12-year-old girl to exploit a couple's kindness in Joinville, southern Brazil, in a case that has gripped the country. Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira initially presented herself as an 18-year-old seeking work at an evangelical church, but after being taken in by the couple she gradually escalated her story, eventually claiming to be a 12-year-old fleeing abuse who looked older only because of forced hormonal treatment as a child.

For 14 months, Oliveira lived with the couple as their "daughter", claiming to be severely autistic and behaving like an infant, including drinking from baby bottles and sucking dummies, while also persuading them to fund weight-loss drugs. She was exposed after a relative of the couple grew suspicious and found reports of a similar deception she had carried out in Rio de Janeiro in 2023; court records show she had run comparable scams across nine Brazilian states over roughly 15 years. A judge in Santa Catarina rejected her defence that mental illness absolved her of responsibility, ruling she had acted deliberately, and her lawyers say they will appeal.