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[Music] Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at
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any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers, for
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confidential support, and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this
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episode on your app or on our website. Please note that the names of several witnesses in this episode have been
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changed. [Music] The main thoroughfare of O'Connell Street in the heart of Dublin was
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bustling with foot traffic on the afternoon of Thursday, October 10, 2013. Even though it was a cold day, tourists
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were amling along the wide footpaths, taking in the city's sights and sounds while office workers hurried by them.
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Everything about the scene was entirely typical for the setting, with one exception.
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A young girl who was all alone appeared to be in a distressed state. She looked to be a teenager and was
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dressed in dark jeans, a purple hoodie with a gray woolen jumper over the top and flat black shoes. She stood at about
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5'6 and had a slim build and long blonde hair as well as braces on her teeth. Most notably, she was obviously
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shivering and seemed to be crying. As she gazed around with fearful, timid eyes, her skin had a washed out palar.
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[Music] The girl wandered along Okonnell Street, coming to a stop outside of the Central
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Post Office, an imposing Greek revival style building that is the principal post office of Dublin.
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Built in 1814, it features six fluted ionic columns along the front and three ornamental statues on top of its roof.
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Its striking appearance has made the GPO building a landmark for Dubliners and tourists alike.
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The teenage girl stood between the building's columns looking distraught. Passers by were beginning to notice her,
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including two uniformed officers of the Garter Shiaana Island's National Police who were patrolling the area.
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The officers approached the young girl and asked her what was wrong. The girl either couldn't or wouldn't
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reply. The officers asked if she needed help. Again, she said nothing. Using hand gestures, she indicated that
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she was experiencing pain in her abdomen. She also held up her fingers to explain that she was 14 years old.
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The officers wondered if perhaps the girl was from overseas and couldn't speak English.
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She didn't have any luggage on her nor any identification. The officers decided that the best thing
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to do was to take her into custody for her own safety as she was clearly vulnerable and distraught.
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The girl was taken to the nearby children's hospital on Temple Street just a short distance from the GO
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building. She was ushered into a cubicle in the emergency department with a curtain
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pulled around for privacy. Physicians examined her while a detective arrived to speak to the girl
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as well. She appeared to be in good health aside from being somewhat emaciated. What was more concerning was her
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behavior. Although she was polite, she was clearly uncomfortable. She hid her face behind the long strands
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of her blonde hair and averted her gaze whenever anyone tried to make eye contact.
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The girl also remained entirely nonverbal no matter who spoke to her. She was questioned for hours but never
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said a word. Nurses who spoke languages other than English were brought in to try talking
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with her to no avail. Eventually, she found a way to communicate. The girl began drawing pictures on a
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piece of paper. They were rudimentary illustrations with stick figures representing people.
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First, she drew herself on an airplane suggesting she had flown to Ireland. She also sketched an image of a gun and
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another of a crucifix. When she drew a bed with a girl on top of it, surrounded by men standing all
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around her, one of the nurses began to cry. [Music] Over the next few days, the GPO girl, as
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she came to be known, was moved from her cubicle to a private room elsewhere in the hospital.
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Whenever anyone attempted to touch her, she would physically recoil from the contact.
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Doctors and the police alike suspected that she had been sexually abused, perhaps even exploited.
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Certainly, her drawings seemed to suggest she had been trafficked to Ireland for sexual exploitation
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purposes. Her clothing was forensically examined for signs of sexual assault, and
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although these tests returned negative, this did little to allay concerns. While physicians did their best not to
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exacerbate the girl's trauma, the story of the mystery girl found in central Dublin made headlines and the subject of
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human trafficking became a national talking point. The GO girl's identity was a total
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mystery. She still wasn't speaking, but she did appear to at least understand some
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English. It was speculated that she may have been flown from Eastern Europe to Ireland by
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an organized crime gang or at least one criminal who held her under total control.
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A police guard was maintained outside of her hospital room at all times and a female liaison officer was appointed to
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handle the delicate nature of the GO girl's case. The girl was also given a guardian named
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Ola Ryan who shared that she was extremely concerned about the welfare circumstances of this young person.
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The guarder launched Operation Shepherd, their name, for the investigation into the case. Missing person reports were
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examined, but none matched the GPO girl. People who had been in the vicinity of the GO building on Thursday, October 10,
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2013 were tracked down and interviewed, while CCTV footage from nearby cameras was reviewed.
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Homelessness services, child protection agencies, and juvenile liaison offices all over Ireland were checked to see if
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they had any record of the girl, as were hotels and host along with lockers at public transit stations and lost luggage
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facilities. Detectives reviewed plane manifests from countless flights to see if any
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passengers matched the description of the GPO girl and spoke extensively with airport police.
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But none of these inquiries led anywhere. [Music] In an attempt to find some record of the
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girl's family, guer officers meticulously searched through recent death notices in case her parents had
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recently passed, leaving her all alone. Noticing that the girl had had orthodontic work, they also reached out
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to dentists to check their records. Despite their efforts, no clues emerged that would help them identify the girl.
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As the days turned into weeks, and almost a month went by, the GPO girl remained in her hospital room. She
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passed the time watching television or sometimes painting her nails, still staying silent at all times.
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Although she was pleasant towards hospital staff and members of the garter, she was also unmistakably cy.
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When officers requested to take her fingerprints in the hopes of identifying her, she refused, nor would she let them
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take her photo. Detectives began to resort to clandestine methods to obtain the information they needed.
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First, they recovered her fingerprints after clearing a used plate from her room. However, the prints matched
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nothing in their systems. Next, a scheme was concocted to allow them to take a photo of the girl.
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She was told she would be moved to a new room. And as she was escorted from one room to another, a nearby officer
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managed to surreptitiously snap her picture. The photo was grainy in quality and only
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captured the girl in profile. Her long hair was scraped into a messy bun on top of her head as she looked
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straight ahead with eyes that appeared tired with heavy bags. Her right hand was raised to her mouth
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and she was sucking on her index finger in a childlike way as though self soothing.
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It wasn't a perfect photograph, but it captured enough of the girl's appearance that someone who knew her might be able
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to recognize her. Detectives sent the picture to Winterpole, an international organization that facilitates police
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cooperation, in the hopes they might be able to identify the girl, but they couldn't.
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Irish detectives were growing desperate. 4 weeks had now passed since the girl was found, and all of their leads had
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dried up. They began to wonder whether going public was the key to solving the mystery.
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They weren't permitted to do this due to the girl's status as a minor and likely
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victim of crime, but perhaps the courts would grant them an exception due to the
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extraordinary circumstances. When detectives told the GPO girl of their plan, she became visibly
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distraught, shaking her head no at the prospect of her photo being shared. But Ireland's high court gave permission
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for the picture to be published. And on Tuesday, November 5, the police held a press conference at Garta headquarters.
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As the GPO girl's photograph was held up, a guard spokesperson beseeched the public.
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Do you recognize this girl? Did you pass her in a distressed state in the city center? Any information is vital to this
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investigation. A special phone line was set up for the public to call with tip offs. After the
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press conference wrapped, the call started coming in. People rang from all over Ireland sharing their theories and
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possible leads with the press conference making international news. Calls were also made
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from locations as far away as Cyprus and Canada. Yet none of these were helpful in
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identifying the GO girl either. It was the middle of the night in Australia when the Garter held their
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press conference, but within a few hours of its broadcast, Australians were waking up to start another day.
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One police officer in the Western Australian capital of Perth saw the report about the GO girl in Ireland
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along with the photo of her that the garter had shared. He thought it sounded remarkably similar
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to another case from 2 years earlier and much closer to home. [Music] 2 years prior in 2011, a 15-year-old
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girl named Hope moved from New Zealand to Perth with her parents and three brothers.
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The international move was a big adjustment for Hope, who had grown up in a small town and now found herself
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living in a capital city. Moreover, she found out that her home school credits from New Zealand were not
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recognized by the Australian authorities, so she would have to find a way to complete her education.
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Hope enrolled at a TA, a kind of vocational education and training provider in Australia.
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Unlike universities which focus on academic study, TAs offer courses that focus on more practical jobspecific
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skills. It is also possible to complete senior secondary studies at TA instead of
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enrolling in a high school. Hope found it difficult to make friends in this new environment as she was shy
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and somewhat sheltered. Everything changed, however, when she met Emily Scabberis in July 2011.
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Emily was completing the same course as Hope and was warm and friendly. She also had a remarkable background.
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Emily was only 15 like Hope, but she was already a champion gymnast who ranked number one in the world for her age
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group. She shared her online Facebook page for her gymnastics with Hope, who saw that
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more than 3,500 people were following it. There were lots of photos of Emily performing in competitions, many of
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which had numerous likes and comments. Despite Emily's incredible achievements, she was down to earth and easy to talk
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to. She told Hope about her family who were of Russian heritage and didn't live in Perth.
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Emily's parents had separated and her mother had moved to France to be close to her own parents who lived there.
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Emily's twin sister Chloe had gone with her. Meanwhile, Emily's father was in Sydney where he worked as an Interpol
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agent. One day, Hope invited Emily to visit her home where she met Hope's family. After
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that, Emily began visiting frequently and sometimes stayed the night. Hope's parents were happy to have her there,
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feeling sorry for the young teenager whose own relatives were far away. Emily became like another member of the
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family and felt like the sister Hope had always wanted. In December 2011, Emily told Hope that
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she was going to France for Christmas. Her parents had decided they should all spend the holidays together despite
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their separation. On Friday, December 16, Emily flew to Paris. A couple of weeks later, Hope was
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scrolling through Facebook when she noticed a troubling post someone had shared on Emily's page.
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It was a link to a news article about Emily's family. According to the article, Emily's father
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had killed his ex-wife and daughter Chloe before taking his own life. Emily had been spared from the murder
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suicide, but had been the one who discovered the grizzly crime scene. Hope and her family were horrified by
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this news. They wanted to help Emily, but didn't know how. Hope's mother, Belinda, sent Emily a
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message to check in with her. Emily explained that she was staying with a family friend who was a judge in
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Florida until the police wrapped up their investigation and she figured out what to do next.
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Stunned and all alone, she didn't know what her next steps should be. Belinda invited Emily to come stay with
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their family. She and her husband were even open to adopting the orphaned teenager if that was what she wanted.
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Emily gratefully accepted the offer. As it happened, the judge she was staying with was an expert in adoption
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cases, so he helped organize the papers and sent over Emily's official documents.
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Then Emily flew back to Perth. She was no longer taking her TA course and it was decided she should go back to
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school. So in February 2012, just as the school year was beginning, Belinda took Emily's
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birth certificate to Girowine Senior High School and enrolled Emily. Later on, however, the family received a
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call from the school with a concerning update. They said that the birth certificate
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looked forged. Belinda's husband decided to call the judge in Florida, whom they had only
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previously had email contact with. He spoke to the judge's receptionist, who said that the judge had not dealt
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with any Australian adoption cases or had contact with anyone in Australia for several years.
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At around the same time, Emily told Hope that her father, who had died, wasn't her biological father. She had actually
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been conceived via sperm donation, and the donor was a lawyer based right there in Perth.
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Emily planned to contact him. Hope found this story very strange, and now the bizarre circumstances were
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piling up. The revelation finally came when Hope's family received a phone call from a
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private investigator who had been hired by the lawyer Emily said was her real father.
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Concerned by this false claim, the lawyer had asked the investigator to find out whatever he could about Emily
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Scabberis. As it turned out, Emily wasn't her real name. She wasn't a Russian gymnast and
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nor was she even a teenager. Her real name was Samantha as a party and she was a 23-year-old woman from
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Sydney with a history of fraud. Samantha had first come to police attention 4 years earlier in November
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2007 when she was 19 years old. She had been in the central Queensland city of Rockampton at the time, posing
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as an individual named Lindsay Lana John Coglin. Authorities found she had done so with
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intent to defraud. 3 years later, she came to attention for a similar scheme 633 km south in the
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Queensland capital of Brisbane. there. She had tried to enroll at two schools using the name Dakota Johnson,
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the same name as a Hollywood movie star. Samantha faced a string of charges related to using a false identity to
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claim welfare benefits, receiving a $500 fine and a suspended sentence in September 2010.
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After that, Samantha as a party had returned to her home state of New South Wales for a time, briefly joining a
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small Christian community in the Blue Mountains and convincing their pastor to take her in.
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Somehow, she'd ended up in Perth by mid 2011, fatefully crossing paths with Hope
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and her family. By March 2012, her story finally unraveled and she was arrested and
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charged with defrauding Social Security by Western Australia Police's major fraud squad.
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Samantha was also admitted to Greylands Hospital, the state's largest mental health inpatient facility, and was kept
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there for 6 weeks. Almost two years later, in November 2013, a police officer in Perth who was
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familiar with the case saw the story about an unidentified sex trafficking victim discovered in Dublin.
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Although Ireland was halfway across the world from Perth, the girl in question looked remarkably similar to Samantha as
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a party, even in profile. The police officer contacted his counterparts in Dublin and alerted them
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to the girl's possible identity. At around the same time, the guard Shiaana received another call from
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someone closer to home who had recognized the GO girl as well. It turned out that Samantha as a party
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had some family members in Ireland. After her parents split up when she was young, Samantha's mother began a
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relationship with a man named Joe, who became a stepfather to Samantha. The couple had two sons together,
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Samantha's half brothers. After the relationship broke down, Joe moved back to his native island, but
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maintained a relationship with Samantha. She had flown over more than a month earlier to visit him and her half
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brothers in the town of Clone, about a 2-hour drive southwest of Dublin. Samantha had stayed with her extended
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family for some time before abruptly leaving. Joe hadn't worried when she did so.
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Samantha could sometimes be a bit erratic, and an abrupt departure wasn't necessarily unusual for her. Strangely
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though, she'd left her belongings and identification behind. She had traveled to Wland using a
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fraudulently obtained Australian passport issued in the name of Georgia McAuliffe.
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After more than 2,000 police hours and a cost of around a quarter of a million, the GO girl had finally been identified.
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The public was outraged. There had been genuine concern and an outpouring of support for Samantha
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Razaparti when she was believed to have been an underage human trafficking victim.
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Now it turned out that she was a 25-year-old con artist who had inexplicably pretended to be in a
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vulnerable situation. The sympathy was instantly revoked. Samantha's stateapp appointed guardian,
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Ola Ryan, requested to be withdrawn from the case. Ola explained that while she remained
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concerned about Samantha's welfare, she was a child protection specialist and Samantha was clearly not a child.
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There was debate as to whether the Irish authorities should charge Samantha with
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a crime. Some members of the public were in favor of this due to the waste of police time
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and resources, but she couldn't be charged with making a false report as she had never made any
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report at all. She had stayed silent the whole time. People speculated as to whether her ruse
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had been a spontaneous action on Thursday, October 10, or whether she had planned it in advance.
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When the guarder searched the mobile phone she had left at her family's house, it revealed she had researched
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children's hospitals in Ireland and the UK. This appeared to hint at a plan, but
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what her end goal had been was a mystery. Samantha hadn't made any financial gain
00:25:10
or obtained any benefits due to her actions. Instead, she'd just spent 4 weeks in a
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hospital bed. As Operation Shepherd's lead detective Dave Gallagher remarked in the
00:25:24
documentary series Kong Girl, "For some people, a month in hospital would be a kind of hell."
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Ultimately, the Irish police decided not to charge Samantha as a party with anything, determining that it wasn't a
00:25:40
criminal matter. They also had sympathy for the fact that the young woman clearly had some mental
00:25:47
health issues, even though a psychiatric report decreed that she had no condition
00:25:52
that would allow authorities to detain her. When detectives asked Samantha if she
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would be willing to return home to Australia, she nodded without saying a word. She still hadn't spoken since being
00:26:07
identified. Two guarter officers escorted Samantha home on her flight to Sydney, which was
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being paid by Irish taxpayers. She didn't speak once during the almost 24-hour journey,
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but Samantha didn't stay in Australia for long. Years later, it would emerge that she
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somehow traveled back to Wland just 6 months after being returned to Australia in April 2014.
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Going by the name India, she moved to County Literum and took a job as a no pair.
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She claimed to be the unagnowledged illegitimate daughter of Princess Meline of Sweden.
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The family she worked for didn't recognize her as the GPO girl and had no idea anything was a miss until Samantha
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abruptly abandoned the job, leaving behind a large amount of cash in her wardrobe along with multiple papers that
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had the name Samantha as a party on them. She had stayed only a few months, departing in the summer to whereabouts
00:27:20
unknown. [Music] In mid 2014, California native Emily Bamberger was having the adventure of a
00:27:34
lifetime. Emily had been just 17 when she graduated high school and started college with ambitions of one day
00:27:42
becoming a writer. When one of Emily's professors heard about her dream, they encouraged her to
00:27:49
go out and see the world so she would gain experiences she could later write about.
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Emily had taken this advice to heart, traveling across the Pacific Ocean and halfway around the world to go
00:28:02
backpacking in Australia. So far, the trip was proving to be worth it, and Emily was having a blast.
00:28:12
While staying at a hostel in Sydney, she befriended some of the other guests there.
00:28:18
One day, a group of them went out to visit the renowned Sydney Opera House, a striking architectural landmark nestled
00:28:26
against a scenic backdrop at the city's harbor. Afterwards, the group planned to go have
00:28:32
dinner together, but Emily declined. She was a vegetarian and wasn't going to be able to eat at their chosen
00:28:40
restaurant. Another girl in the group offered to leave with Emily, explaining that she
00:28:46
was a vegetarian, too. Emily agreed. That was how she met Anakah Deca. [Music] Anakah was a tourist from Sweden who was
00:28:59
polite but quiet and reserved. Other people in the group had thought she seemed strange, but Emily hit it off
00:29:07
with her right away. The two became close in the days and weeks that followed. Anakah began to share details about her
00:29:17
life with her new American friend, explaining that she was the heirs to a European airline.
00:29:24
Later, she reiged on this story and admitted that the truth was even more amazing. She was actually Swedish
00:29:32
royalty and had been briefly kidnapped when she was a child. Although she'd been rescued from her
00:29:39
kidnappers, Anakah remained in serious danger from people who wished her harm, and her family had taken extreme
00:29:46
measures to protect her safety. She was regularly moved around the world to keep her whereabouts unknown, and
00:29:54
there were two Interpol agents, who she described as her keepers, dedicated to her protection.
00:30:02
Emily found all of this a bit hard to swallow, but never voiced her skepticism to Anakah.
00:30:10
Her mind changed abruptly one day when she received an email from a man identifying himself as one of Anakah's
00:30:17
keepers. His email address was linked to the domain interpol.com. This indicator of legitimacy finally had
00:30:28
Emily convinced. She believed that her new friend was who she said she was. The content of the email itself,
00:30:39
however, was concerning. Anakah's keeper informed Emily that she and Anakah were both in danger and would
00:30:47
have to leave Sydney immediately. This was consistent with an email sent to Anakah that she showed to Emily.
00:30:56
The email indicated that the nefarious individuals who'd been stalking Anakah since childhood were now aware of
00:31:03
Emily's existence and knew everything about her, too. The email included page after page of
00:31:11
private details about Emily and her family, including addresses where they lived.
00:31:18
It even mentioned a secret phrase Emily and her mother had come up with in case they ever needed a code word. blue
00:31:25
bananas. Emily had never shared any of this information with Anakah. The two young women fled to Brisbane,
00:31:36
and Anakah provided the terrified Emily with a crash course in living on the run. She taught Emily how to look for
00:31:44
exits wherever they went and to be aware of her surroundings at all times. Once they caught a bus together and when
00:31:52
they disembarked, Anakah asked Emily how many people had been on the bus. Emily said she didn't know.
00:32:01
Anakah told her there had been 28 people, including 13 Caucasians. She warned that Emily needed to start
00:32:10
paying closer attention. She also advised Emily on how to lie if she needed to. The trick was to always
00:32:19
sprinkle some truth in with the lies. Anka also told Emily that they both needed new identities.
00:32:28
Her keepers had mailed them the relevant documents and the two went to a local licensing authority together.
00:32:36
Emily felt uneasy about the process, but had been convinced that if she didn't obtain a new identity, then she and
00:32:44
everyone she loved was in danger. The scheme worked, and Emily walked away with new identification, naming her as
00:32:54
Amy Fisher. Emily had always been under the impression that Anakah was around her
00:33:02
age, 18 years old. That changed when Anakah received an email with some medical information
00:33:09
attached that indicated she was actually 14. Anakah was shocked by the news, prompting Emily to ask if she thought
00:33:19
she was 14. All Anakah said in response was that she couldn't remember the last time she'd
00:33:26
had a birthday. One night while the two were in Brisbane, Anakah woke in the middle of
00:33:32
the night complaining about terrible head pain. Emily called for an ambulance and when
00:33:39
the paramedics arrived, Anakah told them that she was 14 and Emily was her older
00:33:44
sister. Not knowing what to say, Emily just went along with this story. The young women were taken to a local
00:33:55
hospital where a doctor treated Anakah. He appeared suspicious of Emily and soon
00:34:02
two police officers arrived to question her. They questioned Emily for hours, eventually accusing her of kidnapping
00:34:10
Anakah, who they said was an unknown minor, and of giving her drugs. Emily repeatedly denied this, but was
00:34:20
detained in jail for 2 days. When she was searched, police recovered the fake ID she had in her possession.
00:34:29
Emily was ultimately charged with fraud and released after paying a hefty fine. When she left jail scared and confused
00:34:40
in a foreign country, somehow Anakah managed to find her. She'd fled the hospital and still had an
00:34:49
IV drip in her arm. Anakah told Emily that because they'd been discovered, they'd have to go back
00:34:56
to Sydney. She knew a safe house where they could lie low for a while. It was located about 45 minutes outside
00:35:06
of the CBD and was a converted shipping container behind a house in a suburban backyard.
00:35:13
The two girls remained there for 8 days. Emily was terrified. She believed that her life was in so
00:35:24
much danger that she had no choice but to do exactly as Anakah said and hide out.
00:35:30
She was not permitted in the main house on the property and had no phone or access to the internet, meaning she had
00:35:37
no way of contacting her family to let them know she was okay. Eventually, Emily and Anakah left the
00:35:46
safe house. By this time, Emily had spent about 4 months of her trip with Anakah.
00:35:55
She was visiting Australia on a tourist visa, which had almost expired, so she flew to the neighboring country of New
00:36:02
Zealand to apply for a new one. Customs officials in both countries questioned Emily extensively about her
00:36:10
movements, clearly aware of her recent fraud charge. When she landed back in Australia, she
00:36:18
was informed that she was being deported back to the United States and would never be permitted to return to
00:36:25
Australia. The first available flight was to Hawaii and she would have to board a connecting
00:36:32
flight to California from there. Emily had no option but to do as she was told. All of her belongings were still with
00:36:42
Anakah in Sydney. Emily's dream holiday had ended abruptly after months of stress and uncertainty.
00:36:54
During the long flight to Hawaii, she had no access to Wi-Fi, so she had to wait until she landed to check messages
00:37:02
and make contact with loved ones. When Emily logged on to the internet, she saw that Anakah had messaged her
00:37:10
during the flight. She warned Emily that she was in grave danger. Somebody in the United States wanted to
00:37:19
kill her, and Emily should do her best to return to Australia if she could. Emily had thought she was finally done
00:37:28
with Anakah and her associated dramas, but clearly not. She caught her next flight to San
00:37:37
Francisco only to discover another message from Anakah when she arrived. This one warned that Interpol had issued
00:37:46
an alert that an attack was going to take place in California. Emily's life was at risk.
00:37:54
Anakah had bought her a ticket to Vancouver, Canada, and would meet her there. Believing Anakah was telling the truth,
00:38:03
Emily did as she said. When she landed in Canada, she received an email from the Interpol agent who had
00:38:11
been communicating with her for months now. It informed her that he had met with Anakah and given her a package of
00:38:18
items that would assist in keeping them safe. Anakah would also have further instructions for the both of them.
00:38:28
Sure enough, when Emily met with Anakah, she had some things for her. One was an electronic card that Emily
00:38:37
was to keep on her person at all times. The other was a pair of earrings equipped with tracking devices so that
00:38:44
Interpol could keep track of her. The two girls then checked into a hostel. Not long into their stay in Vancouver,
00:38:55
they were approached by two other young women who were staying there. They were Swedish and had noticed from
00:39:02
Anakah's entry in the hostile guest book that she was too. The young women spoke to Anakah in
00:39:09
Swedish, who said nothing in reply. Her expression was almost scared. After a long pause, she said in English,
00:39:21
"It's been a long time since I've spoken Swedish." Emily was baffled. She'd asked Anakah to
00:39:30
speak Swedish on previous occasions, and Anakah had always done so. Not knowing Swedish herself, Emily had
00:39:39
always assumed that Anakah was speaking the language. Now she realized that Anakah had been
00:39:46
pretending the entire time and couldn't fake it when confronted by actual Swedish people.
00:39:53
In an instant, the spell was broken. Emily knew that something was wrong and she had to get away.
00:40:04
Anakah could clearly tell that Emily was no longer willing to go along with her.
00:40:09
So, she proposed a plan. They would hitchhike to another region of Canada so no one would know where
00:40:16
they were. Then Aneka would pretend to be an abuse victim so that social services would
00:40:23
take her into the Canadian system and Interpol could extract her from there. Meanwhile, Emily could fly back to the
00:40:31
US. Exhausted and desperate to go home, Emily went along with the plan. After landing back in San Francisco, she
00:40:43
told no one of the roller coaster she had been through. At 400 p.m. on Tuesday, September 16,
00:40:54
2014, a girl calling herself Aurora Hepburn walked into the Alexandra Community Health Center in Calgary, a
00:41:02
large city in Alberta, Canada, about a 10-hour drive east from Vancouver. Aurora said that she was 14 and a victim
00:41:12
of sex trafficking. Covered in bruises, she said she'd escaped from a cult and had suffered a
00:41:19
head injury resulting in nausea and vomiting. Concerned by this alarming report,
00:41:26
authorities took Aurora into care and had her interviewed by specialists. It was important they uncover as much
00:41:35
information as possible as there may have been other miners out there being victimized by the same individuals.
00:41:42
Aurora explained that she was originally from Denmark and said she'd experienced
00:41:48
a childhood of neglect and physical violence. She and her older sister Daisy had
00:41:54
eventually run away from home and had been living on the streets. The mention of a sister named Daisy gave
00:42:03
police their first clue. One week earlier and 700 km away in Fort McMurray, a missing person's report had
00:42:13
been filed by a woman named Daisy Heburn. She was reporting the disappearance of
00:42:19
her sister, Aurora. Aurora spent 2 weeks in the hospital while detectives looked into her case.
00:42:30
As part of their investigation, they took Aurora's fingerprints and ran them through an international database to see
00:42:36
if they could be matched to anyone. Meanwhile, health care workers tried to establish the extent of Aurora's abuse
00:42:44
and provided her with services to aid in her recovery. Eventually, on Thursday, October 2, the police
00:42:53
received a call from their counterparts in Ireland regarding the girl's prince. They informed the Canadian investigators
00:43:02
that according to her fingerprints, Aurora Heburn wasn't a 14-year-old victim of trafficking.
00:43:10
She was actually 26-year-old Australian con artist Samantha Azapati who had pulled a similar stunt in Dublin less
00:43:18
than a year earlier. And just as they had in Ireland, Samantha's false claims had accred a
00:43:26
significant cost in Canada, estimated at around 150,000 US. When confronted by officers from the
00:43:37
Canadian Border Security Agency, Samantha as a party refused to answer questions about how she had obtained the
00:43:44
necessary travel documents to enter Canada. She was charged with public mischief,
00:43:50
which could see her serve up to 5 years in prison. Samantha appeared in court wearing a
00:43:57
purple prison tracksuit and looked to be smirking as an officer from Canada's border security detailed how she was
00:44:04
known to have at least 40 different aliases. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to
00:44:11
just 2 months. After completing her sentence, she was deported to Australia on Tuesday,
00:44:19
December 9, escorted by a Canadian border security agent. Once back in Australia, Samantha Azapati
00:44:28
was charged with fraudulently obtaining an Australian passport, another charge she pleaded guilty to.
00:44:35
At her sentencing, prosecutors indicated they didn't hold high hopes for her rehabilitation.
00:44:43
Nevertheless, the judge opted to place Samantha as a party on a good behavior bond, warning that if she broke the bond
00:44:50
by assuming further false identities, she would face imprisonment. The Good Shepherd Warara School in the
00:45:01
West Sydney suburb of Marrickville is a special assistant school for students needing extra support.
00:45:09
It is a small institution only taking about 60 students through high school and first opened its doors in 2015.
00:45:18
Late in 2016, the second year that the school was open, a new student named Harper Hart was enrolled.
00:45:28
Harper was a vulnerable 13-year-old living with a foster family who had particular difficulties with reading and
00:45:35
writing. Her enrollment was somewhat rocky as initially she'd failed to provide the necessary documents.
00:45:44
When the school asked for identification, Harper explained that she didn't have any as she was in the
00:45:50
United States Witness Protection Program. She stopped attending the school for a
00:45:56
little while only to return with a doctor's certificate to explain her absence and a birth certificate issued
00:46:03
in the US state of California. Strangely, the birth certificate named the foster family she was staying with
00:46:12
as her biological parents. This wasn't the only odd thing about Harper. Some members of the school staff thought
00:46:22
she looked at least several years older than she claimed to be. When they spoke to her foster parents,
00:46:29
the couple informed them that Harper was indeed 13 and was a victim of sex trafficking.
00:46:36
She had also alleged that she'd been raped by a New South Wales police officer. Harper's foster parents believed their
00:46:45
foster daughter wholeheartedly. They'd first met her randomly on the street where she'd told them her story.
00:46:54
moved by all that she'd been through. The couple had invited her to live with them and offered her a safe haven.
00:47:02
Because the foster placement hadn't gone through any official channels, there was
00:47:07
no documentation available. The school still had concerns about Harper's allegations and the legitimacy
00:47:16
of her birth certificate. After they started questioning Harper's story, they'd received an odd call from
00:47:23
a doctor confirming that Harper was indeed 13 years old, as they had the medical records to prove it.
00:47:32
Despite this, the school reported their concerns to the authorities, which ultimately led to New South Wales police
00:47:39
commencing an investigation. Inquiries with an FBI liaison at the US Council General in Sydney confirmed that
00:47:48
Harper's supposed California birth certificate was a forgery. The medical certificate she'd submitted
00:47:56
was also fake and the doctor named on it wasn't even an employee of the hospital
00:48:01
listed. Investigators scrutinized the school's phone records in an attempt to pinpoint
00:48:08
the number responsible for the doctor's call, supposedly confirming Harper's age.
00:48:14
They honed in on one number in particular, which belonged to a 24year-old French backpacker named Lucy.
00:48:22
Lucy met with the detective and admitted she'd made the call posing as a doctor at the request of an acquaintance of
00:48:29
hers named Leila Revans. Ila had said it was part of a prank. Lucy had met Ila in a Facebook group and
00:48:38
had a photo of her which she showed to the detective. The photo revealed that Leila Evans and
00:48:47
Harper Hart were one and the same. Back at the station, the detective chatted to a colleague about the twist
00:48:54
in the case, prompting his colleague to remark that it sounded similar to the GPO girl case in Dublin 3 years earlier.
00:49:04
The pair googled that case together just in case. There were some differences. Harper Hart
00:49:11
wore her hair in braids and had noticeable freckles, but overall she and the GPO girl looked remarkably similar.
00:49:21
Now, they had a link to infamous con artist Samantha as a party. They just needed to prove it.
00:49:30
Detectives obtained some copies of Harper's homework from the Good Sheeperd school. It was covered in Samantha
00:49:37
Aapat's fingerprints. She had struck again. It was now May of 2017. Teachers and other staff at the Good
00:49:49
Sheperd School were stunned to learn Harper's true identity. Although they had believed she was older
00:49:57
than her claimed age of 13, the revelation that she was a 28-year-old woman was shocking.
00:50:05
Samantha had deliberately dressed in childlike clothing and had used a makeup pencil to draw freckles across her nose
00:50:12
in an attempt to look younger. She had also feigned difficulties with literacy for almost a year, while
00:50:20
teachers worked hard to improve her reading and writing skills. Her foster parents had had no idea of
00:50:27
her true identity and had stood firmly behind her throughout the police investigation.
00:50:33
They maintained their support even after Samantha was arrested for her latest scam.
00:50:41
When detectives took Samantha Aapati down to the police station to be formally charged, she turned her back on
00:50:48
the room's cameras, pulled her hoodie up over her head, and covered her face with
00:50:52
her hands. Two months later, in July 2017, Samantha faced court, charged, this time with
00:51:01
four counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception for education, counseling, food,
00:51:08
accommodation, and electronic devices she was given while pretending to be Harper Hart.
00:51:15
A not forprofit had gifted Harper with an iPad, a mobile phone, and an Opal smart card used to travel on public
00:51:23
transport throughout Sydney. The total cost of her fraud had amounted to $155,000,
00:51:32
including counseling costs and staff wages. Samantha as a party once again pleaded
00:51:40
guilty. This time she was sentenced to a year in jail and would be eligible for parole in
00:51:46
6 months. During sentencing, the judge noted that Samantha suffered from significant
00:51:53
mental health issues, adding, "One might wonder as to the likelihood of improvement down the track."
00:52:04
[Music] One day, 2 years later, in mid 2019, 13-year-old Georgia Bevage received a
00:52:15
private message on her Instagram account. When she read it, her excitement quickly
00:52:21
grew. Georgia lived with her family in Sydney. An aspiring model, Georgia was signed
00:52:29
with an agency and had already worked on a few modeling campaigns. But work from the agency was slow to
00:52:36
trickle in. So, Georgia also used social media to promote her modeling, sharing previous projects and noting in her
00:52:44
Instagram bio that she was available for work. The message that Georgia received was
00:52:51
from someone who'd seen these photos and was keen to hire her. 22-year-old Koko Palmer was a talent
00:52:59
scout for Elite Model Management, a famed modeling agency with offices all over the world, including New York,
00:53:07
Paris, and London. Koko was based in Melbourne and had discovered George's pictures online.
00:53:16
She loved George's style and thought she would be perfect for an anti-bullying campaign Koko was working on.
00:53:24
Georgia was thrilled and shared the exciting news with her mother, Mel. Mel was pleased for her daughter, but
00:53:32
cautious. She told Georgia to have Koko call her so she could vet her. Koko did so, and the conversation went
00:53:42
well. Mel later Googled everything Koko had told her, and her story seemed to check
00:53:48
out. The next step was to have an in-person interview. Koko traveled up to Sydney to meet
00:53:57
Georgia and Mel. They met her in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel, then walked across the road to a
00:54:04
cafe where Koko ordered hot chocolates for everyone. Koko explained that she wanted to cast
00:54:11
to Georgia in a short film campaign and they'd complete a photo shoot by the end
00:54:17
of the week. Koko came across as warm and professional, putting Mel's mind at ease.
00:54:26
After they finished chatting, Koko said she wanted to take Georgia shopping for a blazer to wear in the campaign.
00:54:34
She and Georgia walked ahead to a department store while Mel tried to follow but got stuck behind some
00:54:41
construction work. Georgia and Koko returned after a short period, and Mel later asked Georgia how
00:54:49
the shopping had gone. Georgia said it had been a little strange. While they were in a shop, Koko had told
00:54:58
her she needed to practice her acting in anticipation of the upcoming film. She told Georgia to call Lifeline, a
00:55:06
crisis support service for individuals experiencing mental health issues and say her name was River.
00:55:14
Posing as River, Georgia should tell Lifeline that she was a victim of abuse and share a really sad life story.
00:55:26
Georgia did as she was told. Soon, the Lifeline staff member who'd answered her call was pressing for more information,
00:55:34
clearly concerned about the minor on the other end. Koko told Georgia to hang up, so she
00:55:41
did. Mel thought this sounded like a very strange task, but wondered if perhaps it
00:55:48
was considered normal in the acting world. It wasn't an industry she knew much about.
00:55:55
Not wanting her daughter to miss out on a great opportunity, she decided they should keep moving ahead.
00:56:03
The next step was for Georgia and her family to spend a week in Melbourne, where Koko was based and where Georgia
00:56:10
would be working on her campaigns. Koko arranged flights for Georgia and Mel, as well as George's older sister,
00:56:18
Tiana, and her infant son. The family was excited. It was their first time on an airplane.
00:56:27
When they arrived in Melbourne on Monday, July 1, 2019, they met up with Koko, who was putting them all up in a
00:56:35
hotel in South Bank, a popular tourist destination in Melbourne's CBD. The group quickly bonded with Koko, who
00:56:45
was kind and engaging. They also discovered that they shared similar sorrows when Koko revealed that
00:56:52
she'd had leukemia as a child. As it happened, George's father was currently in remission from leukemia.
00:57:02
Koko admired how tight-knit the bevages were and said she envied their family. She had grown up in a series of foster
00:57:11
homes. Mel was touched by this and invited Koko to spend Christmas with them. But Georgia wasn't always comfortable
00:57:22
with the things Koko asked her to do as part of their work together. Sometimes Koko would apply makeup to
00:57:30
make Georgia look beaten up, then instruct her to go into an office for child services and claim to have been
00:57:37
abused. This made Georgia upset and she feigned illness to get out of it. Koko's lack of familiarity with
00:57:47
Melbourne also seemed strange given she claimed to live there. She didn't seem to know her way around
00:57:54
the city streets or know which tram to catch to go somewhere. On one occasion, Georgia cried to her
00:58:02
mother in the hotel bathroom, sharing that something felt wrong. Mel reassured Georgia that it was okay
00:58:10
and she just needed to adjust to being out of her comfort zone. On Thursday, July 4, towards the end of
00:58:19
their week in Melbourne, the group had to relocate from the hotel where they'd been staying to a hostel because Koko
00:58:26
had only booked the hotel for a certain number of nights. While Koko and Georgia were out working,
00:58:33
one of the hostile staff at reception asked Mel which member of their party would be providing identification to
00:58:40
confirm their booking with the front desk. Mel replied that Koko would. The staff member appeared confused and
00:58:49
asked who Koko was. Mel said she was the woman they were staying with. "Oh, you mean Jazz Jervis?" the staff
00:58:59
member replied, then showed them a copy of a bank card emlazed with the totally unfamiliar name.
00:59:10
Mel and her elder daughter Tiana had no idea who Jazz Jervis was or why Koko Palmer would be using her bank card.
00:59:19
They Googled Jazz Jervis's name and quickly found social media accounts for her. She wasn't Coco Palmer. She was a
00:59:28
young mother living in Melbourne with her husband and daughter. Her husband Tom Jervis was a
00:59:35
professional basketballer who'd played for the Perth Wildcats in Australia's National Basketball League.
00:59:42
Tiana sent Jazz a message on Facebook and told her what had happened. Jazz saw the message quickly and knew
00:59:50
exactly who Tiana was talking about. She sent back her own story. In June 2018, Jazz and Tom had been
01:00:02
living in Brisbane and needed an Opair for their 2-year-old daughter, Clementine.
01:00:08
Jazz turned to a popular Opair group on Facebook to find someone and was soon contacted by another host family with a
01:00:16
recommendation. They had a 17-year-old Opair named Harper Hernandez, who was amazing, but
01:00:24
they were moving overseas, so didn't need her services anymore. Harper needed a new job, and the host
01:00:31
family recommended her wholeheartedly. Delighted to have received a referral, Jazz met with Harper and liked her right
01:00:41
away. Clementine adored her, and it seemed like a perfect fit. Harper moved in with them and was as
01:00:49
good as the host family had promised. She helped out around the house, was excellent with Clementine, and got along
01:00:57
well with the Jervis's family and friends. When the Jervises relocated to Melbourne, Harper came with them.
01:01:06
For about a year, all had gone well, but things eventually took a turn. Jazz and Tom noticed that Harper was
01:01:16
very cy about her background and she had a tendency to lie about random things. When they Googled her name, nothing at
01:01:25
all came up, which seemed strange. Eventually, they decided to let Harper go, telling her it was no longer the
01:01:35
right fit. She told them she intended to travel west to Perth, and Tom gave her a lift
01:01:42
to Melbourne airport on Wednesday, June 19, 2019. It wasn't until after she'd left that
01:01:50
they discovered she'd stolen Jazz's driver's license and the family iPad. Harper had left some things behind as
01:01:59
well, including several passports in different names. Just over 2 weeks later, Jazz received
01:02:07
the message from Tiana Bevage informing her that a supposed talent scout they were working with had a bank card in her
01:02:14
name. Tiana and Mel were horrified to learn Jazz's story. Realizing they had no idea
01:02:23
who Koko Palmer really was, they called the police to report her, only to receive little assistance.
01:02:32
Then they called Georgia on her mobile phone. As Georgia was currently out alone with
01:02:39
Koko, they had to tread carefully. They told Georgia that Koko wasn't a safe person, that she should pretend to
01:02:48
feel sick and say she had to leave. Georgia did as she was told, and when she and Koko returned to the hostel, Mel
01:02:59
and Tiana confronted the supposed talent scout with what they knew. Tiana secretly recorded the
01:03:07
confrontation on her phone, managing to capture some surreptitious footage of Koko.
01:03:13
Cy and nervous, Koko repeatedly refused to show the family her ID, but reassured
01:03:20
them that she had tickets for them all to fly home. She wouldn't show them or send them the
01:03:27
tickets then and there, and when Mel began shouting at her to share her real name, Koko suddenly fled.
01:03:36
By the time police arrived, she was long gone. The family flew home the next day after
01:03:45
paying almost $1,000 for tickets out of their own pocket. When they were safely at home, Mel
01:03:52
shared a post about the ordeal to her Facebook page. She attached a photo she'd taken of Koko
01:03:59
as well as a screenshot from their secretly recorded confrontation. To say I'm shattered and disappointed in
01:04:07
myself is an understatement. How could I be so blind to be had like that? Mel wrote,
01:04:15
"Please share this woman's face." Police were no help, but I'm taking it further as she's dangerous.
01:04:25
An acquaintance of Mel's soon saw the post and sent her a message. Mel, I know this woman. Google GO girl
01:04:35
and you'll know what I'm talking about. Mel did so and as soon as she saw the infamous photograph of Samantha as a
01:04:44
party taken by Dublin police she knew that she and Koko Palmer were one and the same.
01:04:53
Jazz Jervis also shared Mel's post and other revelations quickly came to light as the story spread.
01:05:01
A total stranger reached out to the Jervis family to tell them Samantha, posing as Harper Hernandez, had once
01:05:09
left their daughter Clementine in the stranger's care for several hours. Another Melbourne family had also fallen
01:05:19
victim to the same scheme as Mel and Georgia Bevage earlier that year when Samantha posed as a talent scout named
01:05:26
Marley. She wanted to hire their 12-year-old daughter, Emma, to do voiceover work in
01:05:33
a cartoon. After charming the family, she began to meet with Emma every Tuesday and asked
01:05:40
her to do strange things. She had to go into shops, a hospital, and the office of a statutory authority
01:05:48
responsible for providing Australians with social security payments claiming to be adopted and in need of help.
01:05:57
Marley instructed Emma not to tell her parents about any of these tasks. On one occasion, she had to report that
01:06:05
she was seeing ghosts. Things came to a terrifying head when Marley took Emma on a paid trip to
01:06:14
Sydney, promising her an audition in the Australian version of the prank focused
01:06:19
television program Punked. They stayed together at a ranch. Emma noticed that the other people there
01:06:28
called Marley Samantha, but when she asked her about that, Marley refused to answer.
01:06:35
After 2 days, Marley sent Emma home on a train to Melbourne, an 11-hour journey that the 12-year-old had to make alone.
01:06:45
When the family subsequently confronted Marley, she disappeared. They could find no trace of her online.
01:06:55
As word got out on social media that infamous con artist Samantha Razaparti was at it again while she was supposed
01:07:02
to still be on a good behavior bond. Traditional media picked up the story. Victoria police commented that they were
01:07:11
investigating reports of her alleged deception in the state. What was most concerning was that
01:07:18
Samantha was no longer the center of her own scams. While before she had posed as a child
01:07:25
herself in repeated stories of abuse and suffering, now she appeared to be enlisting actual children to live out
01:07:33
that same fantasy. 4 months later on Friday, November 1, 2019, a teenage girl wearing a blue
01:07:46
school uniform with a bluefelt hat walked into Headspace offices in the regional Victorian city of Bendigo,
01:07:53
about a 2-hour drive north from Melbourne. Headspace is a youth mental health foundation with centers all over
01:08:01
Australia. The girl wasn't alone. Standing next to her was a 4-year-old girl and strapped
01:08:08
to the teenager's chest was a 10-month-old baby. [Music] The girl told Headspace staff that she
01:08:16
was 14 years old and pregnant. The pregnancy was the result of her abusive uncle having raped her.
01:08:25
But one staff member at the center had seen the recent social media posts about Samantha Azapati's latest deceptions,
01:08:33
and they recognized the person in front of them as the now 31-year-old con artist.
01:08:40
The staff member took a photo of Samantha and called the police. Although detectives were quickly
01:08:48
dispatched, Samantha was still wanted by Victoria Police for her use of Jazz Jervis's stolen driver's license. By the
01:08:56
time they arrived, Samantha had fled with the children in tow. Undeterred, the detectives headed to
01:09:05
Bendigo's main shopping district located on a busy thoroughare called Palmemell.
01:09:11
They located Samantha as a party and the two children wandering along the street
01:09:17
and she spotted them too. Samantha fled inside a department store and the detectives followed.
01:09:26
She ducked and weaved around racks and counters as the police closed in. She'd made it to a cosmetics counter and
01:09:34
was unbuckling the harness that kept the baby strapped to her chest when one of the detectives called out, "Samantha."
01:09:42
She stopped and stared back at him before asking, "Who me?" Samantha as a party was arrested and
01:09:53
taken into custody along with the two small children. They appeared to speak little English,
01:10:00
making it difficult for police to communicate with them and find out their names.
01:10:06
Meanwhile, Samantha sat in a cell, turning to face a corner and hugging her knees to her chest.
01:10:13
The detectives tried to question her, but she refused to be formally interviewed, speaking only in strange
01:10:20
riddles. She began providing cryptic clues as to the children's identity, indicating
01:10:27
she'd met their parents via a work wanted ad. Eventually, detectives were able to
01:10:35
identify the children as two sisters, the daughters of French nationals who had recently moved to Melbourne.
01:10:42
The couple had hired Samantha as a no pair one month earlier in October, and she had been living with the family.
01:10:51
They believed her name was Sakar, that she was 18 and a qualified child care worker with the documents to prove it.
01:11:01
Earlier that morning, Samantha had told the couple she was taking the girls on a
01:11:05
picnic in the Yuyangs, a mountain range and regional park about an hour southwest of the family's home in
01:11:12
Melbourne. Instead, she'd taken them to Bendigo in a completely different part of the
01:11:18
state. The children were unharmed and reunited with their parents. Samantha Azapati was charged with two
01:11:28
counts of child stealing and with stating a false name. She was also charged with handling
01:11:34
stolen goods for the theft of Jazz Jervis's driver's license and obtaining property by deception for the wages
01:11:42
she'd been paid by the Jervis family. When the COVID 19 pandemic hit Australia the following year, court cases faced
01:11:55
delays due to restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of the virus. Samantha as a party spent a year and a
01:12:02
half in jail before her case was finally heard in Melbourne Magistrate's Court in
01:12:07
May 2021. She appeared via video link wearing a blue face mask and her hair up in a bun.
01:12:16
Once again, Samantha as a party pleaded guilty to all charges. She was sentenced to 2 years
01:12:24
incarceration with a one-year non-p parole period. Given the time she'd served on remand,
01:12:31
she was free to go, though she would have to receive mandatory treatment and therapy.
01:12:39
Despite the more serious charges and mandated therapy, Samantha as a party continued to offend.
01:12:47
In November 2021, she approached a youth worker at the not for-p profofit organization Youth Off the Streets in
01:12:54
Sydney. She claimed to be 16 years old and a member of a cult whose parents had sent
01:13:01
her to Sydney from Brisbane to live with a man who sexually assaulted her, took photographs of her, and held her
01:13:08
captive. Samantha said she'd been sleeping in Sydney's Hyde Park to escape the abuse.
01:13:17
The youth worker reported the case to the child protection helpline who referred it to police and an
01:13:23
investigation was launched. Samantha had an appointment to speak with officers but avoided doing so at
01:13:31
the last minute. When the police followed up at the address where she was living, they found
01:13:37
no trace of the abusive man she'd described. Samantha went to a hospital one week
01:13:45
later and reported a similar story. This time adding that she'd been injected with a fertility drug against her will.
01:13:54
She ran away before hospital staff could examine her. The following month, she was finally
01:14:00
arrested and charged after once again reaching out to a youth worker. When subsequently speaking to a
01:14:08
psychiatrist about the incident, she claimed to have no memory of it, stating, "Holy crap, it's as if my day was wiped
01:14:17
out when the police said I did something and that I could go to jail again. It's
01:14:23
all very hard to believe." When she appeared in court on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, Samantha was emotional,
01:14:33
shaking, and hyperventilating as a magistrate described her crimes as serious and a drain on resources.
01:14:41
She was ordered to serve a three-year community corrections order and undergo mental health treatment.
01:14:49
Just 7 months later, she was back in court after pretending to be a 14-year-old abuse survivor from France.
01:14:57
She was initially sentenced to 17 months jail, but the sentence was reduced on appeal and she was released in December.
01:15:07
[Music] 2 months later, in February 2023, a young Danish woman called Sophie traveled to Australia on a working
01:15:17
holiday visa and began living in regional New South Wales. Sophie soon met an 18-year-old Norwegian
01:15:26
backpacker named Astera Hansen, who was also traveling through New South Wales. A Hansen, who in reality was 35-year-old
01:15:36
Samantha, said she had been hired by entertainment agency Village Road Show to create video diaries of her travels.
01:15:45
As part of the project, she would have to stay in low-budget accommodation. She invited Sophie to work alongside her
01:15:53
and also posed as a Village Road Show employee, sending Sophie a non-disclosure agreement to sign.
01:16:01
The job paid well at $2,800 per week. When the two women arrived at one of the low-budget hotels, Sophie discovered it
01:16:13
was actually a women's refuge. She was told that she would have to pretend to be Samantha's sister as a
01:16:20
condition of her employment. Sophie objected to staying at an accommodation for women fleeing
01:16:27
violence, but was told she had to. Over the following weeks, Sophie and Samantha traveled north to Queensland,
01:16:36
staying at refues on the Gold Coast and Mai using fake names. Sophie was incredibly upset about this
01:16:44
arrangement and tried to quit her job, but Samantha manipulated her by claiming the police were after her.
01:16:53
She convinced Sophie to go to Melbourne with her and hide out while she contacted her Danish grandfather, who
01:16:59
was a lawyer, for help. As Sophie's phone and passport had somehow gone missing during the course
01:17:06
of their travels, she was even more dependent on Samantha. The two arrived in Melbourne in August
01:17:14
2023 and Samantha adopted a new identity. Now she was Ocean Jones. She set about trying to alter her
01:17:25
physical appearance using a credit card in another woman's name to pay for freckles to be cosmetically tattooed
01:17:31
onto her face at a salon. Then she contacted family violence support services and claimed that she
01:17:39
and her sister were living rough after running away from their abusive stepfather.
01:17:45
She spoke in broken English, pretended to be a Belgian teenager, and said she was a victim of sex trafficking.
01:17:53
This led to the pair being housed in women's shelters and emergency accommodations designated for those
01:18:00
fleeing family violence. Police soon cottoned on to the scam and contacted a support worker who had been
01:18:08
handling Samantha's case to tell her they believed that one of the victims she was supporting was actually a con
01:18:15
artist. Staff who had gone out of their way to assist Samantha were devastated by the
01:18:21
revelation. A senior manager at one of the shelters told the Sydney Morning Herald that they
01:18:28
were traumatized and riddled with self-doubt following the ruse. Moreover, the scam had undoubtedly
01:18:36
deprived women who were genuinely in need of help. Quote, "Family violence is currently at epidemic levels. There's
01:18:45
simply not enough funding or resources available to keep victim survivors safe, resulting in one woman being killed
01:18:53
every 4 days. The critical impact of this abhorrent manipulation is in so many ways
01:19:00
immeasurable for the victim survivors denied support during this period. Samantha Azapati's false claims led to
01:19:10
her receiving more than $20,000 from funds designated to family violence victims.
01:19:18
In October 2024, she pleaded guilty to six charges, including obtaining financial advantage by deception.
01:19:27
Samantha was again sentenced to 2 years jail. At the time of this episode's recording,
01:19:35
she remains incarcerated at the Dame Phyllis Frost Center in Melbourne. However, she will be released at some
01:19:44
point in the near future, and it appears inevitable that she will commit further
01:19:49
offenses once freed. Although Samantha Razapati has created elaborate backstories and histories for
01:20:00
the more than 75 aliases she's used over the past two decades, not much about the
01:20:07
real Samantha is known. She was born in August 1988 into a middle-class family who resided in
01:20:15
Campbell Town, a suburb on the outskirts of Sydney. Her parents separated when Samantha was young and both her and her
01:20:24
brother remained with their mother. Samantha later attended Mount Tannan High School where she was a
01:20:31
conscientious student and had a small group of friends, but she was known for seeking attention
01:20:38
by sometimes walking out of class without explanation. She was also known for stretching the
01:20:44
truth. She used to tell her friends that her real name was Lindsay Lohan like the
01:20:51
American actress. When the movie Freaky Friday was released starring the real Lindsay
01:20:57
Lohan, Samantha dyed her hair red to match the film stars. After graduating from school, she found
01:21:06
a job at a pancake restaurant in Campbell Town. When journalists later spoke to her
01:21:12
former boss immediately following the GO girl incident, she described her as a lovely girl who had issues.
01:21:21
Samantha's mother has also spoken to the media, though has requested that she not
01:21:26
be identified by name. She described Samantha as having been a sweet, adventurous, and independent
01:21:33
child, and said that the way her daughter's life had unfolded was heartbreaking.
01:21:41
Samantha has said very little to anyone about her background, and court records have noted that what she has said cannot
01:21:49
necessarily be believed due to her being an unreliable historian. She has claimed that when she was a
01:21:57
child, her mother had her admitted to a psychiatric unit for a year due to being
01:22:02
a pathological liar, but this has never been verified. At one point, Samantha also admitted
01:22:10
herself to Campbell Town Hospital in the suburb where she grew up due to selfharming behavior, memory loss,
01:22:17
confusion, and suicide attempts. In 2023, a four-part documentary series about Samantha as a party was released
01:22:28
under the title Kong Girl. In it, News Corp journalist Rowan Smith described how he was contacted by a
01:22:36
member of Samantha's family while covering the case. They told Rowan that Samantha was
01:22:43
sexually abused when she was growing up and had subsequently spent some time living with another family member who
01:22:49
was very religious. This family member had told Samantha that she needed to recreate herself
01:22:56
following the abuse and that she would go to hell unless she built a whole new life.
01:23:03
Rowan Smith asked this individual for proof of their claims, including verification of their identity and how
01:23:10
they were related to Samantha. He never heard from them again. A 2015 report by forensic psychologist
01:23:20
Dr. Susan Pulman noted that Samantha had been sexually abused by two separate males as a child.
01:23:29
Numerous mental health experts who have looked into her case say that there are indicators she has been abused at some
01:23:36
point. The motive for her crimes does not appear to be financial despite occasionally receiving some financial
01:23:44
benefit. Instead, Samantha appears to be motivated by receiving attention and affection.
01:23:52
In all of her ruses, there is a pattern of identifying as a victim of sex trafficking and abuse.
01:23:59
Initially, Samantha repeatedly posed as a young teenager aged around 14 years. And in all of these assumed identities,
01:24:08
she described being abused, usually at the hands of a male relative, such as an uncle.
01:24:15
As Samantha aged and it became more difficult for her to pass as a minor, she began targeting young adolescent
01:24:22
girls and had them lie about being abused to live the same story through them. Dr. Richard Frierson, a professor of
01:24:33
psychiatry at the University of South Carolina, studied Samantha's crimes for the documentary series Kong Girl.
01:24:41
He believes Samantha's targeting of adolescent girls was a form of factitious disorder imposed on another,
01:24:49
previously known as Munchousen syndrome by proxy. This is a serious mental health
01:24:55
condition where an individual, usually a parent, repeatedly lies about their child or a dependent, being unwell in
01:25:03
order to receive attention from others. Dr. Fry suspected that Samantha as a party did a similar thing using young
01:25:13
girls who were in her care. The fact that all of her scenarios centered around early adolescence led
01:25:20
him to believe that something highly traumatic likely happened to her at that age and that she has a need to relive
01:25:27
that for some reason. Either she got a lot of sympathy back then and it was rewarding and she wants
01:25:35
to feel that love and attention again. he said. Or if she were abused at age 14 and her report of abuse was ignored or
01:25:44
minimized or nonvalidated, then she may have an inner need to get that validation and to get it repeatedly to
01:25:52
sort of undo the trauma of not being believed previously. [Music] Samantha as a party has also been
01:26:01
assessed by numerous courtappointed psychiatrists in Australia, Ireland, and Canada.
01:26:07
In 2017, after Samantha posed as abused teenager Harper Hart, one psychiatrist diagnosed her as having borderline
01:26:16
personality disorder, a mental health condition characterized by difficulties in regulating emotions and unstable
01:26:24
interpersonal relationships. They reported that Samantha had a remarkably unstable sense of identity
01:26:32
with a tendency to disassociate. In 2021, Australian forensic psychiatrist Jacqueline Rakov also
01:26:42
determined that Samantha had borderline personality disorder and added a diagnosis of pseudologia fantastica, a
01:26:50
rarer condition characterized by compulsive lying. It is the same condition attributed to
01:26:58
Alicia Estair Head who falsely claimed to be a survivor of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center terror attacks
01:27:06
as featured in episode 286 of Case File. Dr. Rakov found that Samantha had experienced a highly traumatic childhood
01:27:16
where she was emotionally neglected and physically abused. Notes from a 2006 psychologist's session
01:27:24
between Samantha and her mother revealed her mother had physically abused her. Like Dr. Fryerson, Dr. Rakov believed
01:27:34
Samantha's compulsive lies were motivated by a desire to relive a certain period in her life and recreate
01:27:41
a happier version. Despite Samantha Azapati's mental health issues, assessments have also indicated
01:27:49
that she is not mentally impaired and has at times had full awareness that what she was doing was wrong.
01:28:02
While experts have been called upon to explain Samantha Azapati's actions, they have also been asked how it was that she
01:28:09
was able to dup so many people with her seemingly outlandish stories. Countless people have been lied to and
01:28:16
manipulated by Samantha Azapati with her earliest scams dating back to 2007 and resulting in more than 100 criminal
01:28:25
charges and 55 convictions. These crimes have had a significant impact on their victims.
01:28:34
13-year-old Georgia Bevage struggled for months after being manipulated by Samantha. She was so scared at night
01:28:42
that she had to sleep with her mother and found it difficult to trust people. George's parents have grappled with
01:28:49
terrible guilt and shame after trusting Samantha, as have other parents who left
01:28:54
children in her care, like Tom and Jazz Jervis. Others who have encountered Samantha,
01:29:02
such as American Emily Bamberger, have had traumatic experiences as a result of befriending her.
01:29:09
Emily shared her story with the journalist Rowan Smith, admitting that she asks herself every day why she fell
01:29:17
for Samantha's lies. The best way I can describe it is I was wideeyed, terrified, and really thought
01:29:25
I was helping another human being be safe. Since meeting Samantha, Emily has lost
01:29:32
trust in other people. She finds it hard to make new friends and believe the things people tell her.
01:29:41
Support workers who helped Samantha in her various guises have also spoken of experiencing a loss of trust in others
01:29:48
which has had an effect on the work they do. Tiana Bevage whose sister Georgia was
01:29:55
targeted by Samantha said in an interview for the docue series Kong Girl. Samantha is so believable because she
01:30:04
just talks her way into it. She talks her way around things and makes you say yes without saying yes. She just gets
01:30:13
into your mind and is just so convincing. Experts in human behavior have said that
01:30:21
Samantha follows a distinct pattern in order to win people over. Dr. Vera Tobin, an associate professor
01:30:30
of cognitive science, spoke in the docu series Kong Girl about how Samantha reels people in with narratives the
01:30:37
human mind is drawn to. Samantha begins by building a rapport with people, bonding over small things
01:30:45
they have in common or a sympathetic story. As their connection grows, she starts to
01:30:52
test them with what Dr. Tobin calls her world building by sharing larger fabrications.
01:30:58
[Music] If they're susceptible to these, then she introduces even bigger twists and
01:31:05
turns. Dr. Tobin likened Samantha to a human page turner in the way she maintains a
01:31:12
sense of action by introducing new developments all the time. In her book, The Confidence Game, author
01:31:21
Maria Konova explained how Samantha as a party has an ability to tell compelling
01:31:27
and heartbreaking stories that cast those listening in the role of savior. This was partly how she was able to
01:31:36
convince people. Quote, "Stories bring us together. We can talk about them and bond over them.
01:31:45
Stories are so natural that we don't notice how much they permeate our lives. That's precisely why they can be such a
01:31:54
powerful tool of deception. When we're immersed in a story, we let down our guard. We focus in a way we
01:32:02
wouldn't if someone were just trying to catch us with a random phrase or picture
01:32:07
or interaction. The more extreme the story, the more successful it becomes. Emotions on high, empathy engaged. We
01:32:19
become primed to help. As a party may have been lying, but that isn't all she was doing.
01:32:28
She was also giving people the opportunity to shine in the humanitarian light that they always suspected lay
01:32:35
within them. [Music] [Music]