Samantha Azzopardi: Con woman lied about being kidnapped, sex trafficked and raped

She’s been labelled “Australia’s biggest con woman”, but who is the infamous scam artist with 40 aliases who has fooled international governments with her elaborate lies?

A woman labelled as “Australia’s greatest con artist” has been sentenced for lying to the authorities in her hundredth domestic offence. But just who is this international con artist with 40 aliases?

International con artist Samantha Azzopardi, 33, learned her fate on May 18 for pretending to be a victim of a cult member who held her captive in his Sydney home and raped her.

According to the police facts, the Douglas Park resident contacted a youth worker at Youth Off The Streets on November 19 to claim she was a teenage member of a cult. Azzopardi told the youth worker her parents had sent her from Brisbane to live with a man who had regular non-consensual sex with her, took photos of her, and held her captive.

She used the alias of 16-year-old Eleanor Harris when she told the youth worker she sometimes slept in the park to escape her alleged abuser, according to documents tendered to the court. The youth worker subsequently called the Child Protection Helpline, which triggered a police investigation.

A week later, Azzopardi went to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and told a doctor she was a 16-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted. She spun the doctor a story similar to what she’d told the youth worker, adding that she had been injected with a fertility drug against her wishes. However, she ran off before the doctor was able to perform an examination.

Later that day, the facts show she met with the youth worker who noticed she had a bruise under her eye. Azzopardi told the youth worker ‘Aaron’ had hit her. However, police noted the bruise was absent when they visited her house on the same day.

Azzopardi was arrested on December 1 after she made another call to the youth worker, who informed police.

She had only been recently released from a two-year jail stint in Victoria for stealing two children.

In sentencing at Picton Local Court, Magistrate Mark Douglass said the matters were “serious”.

He told the court that he accepts Azzopardi had a mental illness or condition that she was “impacted by” when she committed the offences and he would take that into account.

“In relation to this matter, this court is also aware this particular offender has the capacity to commit serious offences,” Magistrate Douglass said.

Azzopardi was sentenced to a three-year community corrections order with the orders to participate in mental health treatment and take medication as directed.

Magistrate Douglass then addressed Azzopardi directly in court.

“What you did and what you pleaded guilty to was wrong on many levels,” Magistrate Douglass said. “It was legally wrong. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Azzopardi responded.

Serial liar, liar

Azzopardi shot to international fame in 2013 when she was found wandering the streets of Dublin, Ireland.

Posing as a mute, she led police to believe she was a teenage victim of a human sex trafficking ring, which resulted in a prolonged police investigation totalling more than AUD$440,000.

A year later, she was caught telling a similar story in Canada. Azzopardi was charged with mischief after she told Calgary police she has been a victim of sex trafficking and exploitation in September 2016.

She told the authorities she was 14 years old and had been subjected to ongoing sexual assault after being abducted. The false allegations cost the police more than AUD$174,000 to investigate.

Samantha Azzopardi appears for sentencing at Picton Local Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

She was charged and deported from both Ireland and Canada after her lies were uncovered.

“The accused is internationally known for committing such offences … she is known to forge international documents,” said a police statement tendered to Picton Court.

“The accused is skilled at fraud and con artistry.”

In addition to tricking international organisations, Azzopardi has also been charged with 99 offences in Australia.

Picton court heard she has criminal records in Western Australia, Victoria, and Queensland for fraud and deception charges.

After years of making false claims, Azzopardi was jailed in 2017 after she falsely claimed she was a 13-year-old foster child to enrol in a Sydney school and access government benefits.

Only months before she committed the most recent offences, Azzopardi was released from a two-year jail sentence for child stealing.

She used a fake name to be hired as a nanny for a family in Victoria, and was arrested after she took a 10-month-old and four-year-old to Bendigo – more than two hours away from where she told their parents they would be.

During her submissions to Picton Court on March 18, Azzopardi’s lawyer Carolyn Shiels minimised the offence and said her client has never harmed anyone.

Samantha Azzopardi appears for sentencing at Picton Local Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

“Aside from the children who were taken somewhere from where she was meant to take them, she hasn’t hurt anyone,” she said.

However, the court heard the continued offences have hurt the community who rely on the services she squandered with false claims.

“They are allegations that in the first instance can involve a serious waste of resources to a point where others in need are neglected or placed on the end of the queue,” Magistrate Mark Douglass told Picton Court on March 25.

“Police and other resources are finite and in my view, must not be deliberately wasted, particularly with incorrect allegations.”

Magistrate Douglass noted Azzopardi has a record of consistently committing similar offences across several jurisdictions, both domestically and internationally.

Who is she?

The truth of Samantha Azzopardi’s identity is difficult to determine.

The woman, who Ms Shiels said has been labelled “Australia’s biggest con woman”, has spun an elaborate web of lies that’s tricky to unpick.

Azzopardi has a long list of more than 40 aliases, including the name under which she was charged for her most recent offences – Emily Bamberger.

Emily Bamberger is the name of a former friend of Azzopardi’s, who became another victim of her lies when Azzopardi convinced her they were being chased by a shadowy force intent on kidnapping them.

Con artist Samantha Azzopardi leaves Picton courthouse with her lawyer. Picture Simon Bullard

Azzopardi employed her long list of aliases when committing crimes, which made it difficult for people to verify information she was telling them. Magistrate Douglass told Picton court her various lies made it difficult for psychologists and report writers to assess the truth of her background.

“She gave a different history to different report writers,” he said on March 25.

“She told a different report writer that she had a child (which she denied in another interview) and she told yet another report writer she’d been sexually abused, which she denied to the principal report writer.”

According to psychological reports tendered to the court, Azzopardi’s parents divorced when she was very young and both went on to have different partners.

“We don’t know much about her early life but we can only surmise … it was abusive,” her lawyer said on March 18.

A neuropsychological assessment from April 2015 noted the 32-year-old had been admitted to an adolescent mental health unit when she was 18 after incidents of self-harm.

The assessment conducted by Dr Susan Pullman formally assessed Azzopardi as having an IQ lower than 99.5% of the general population.

In terms of relationships, she told the report writer she was asexual and didn’t have any friends before being imprisoned.

Why the lies?

When it comes to motivation for her continuous offending, Ms Shiels suggested to Picton Court that Azzopardi was desperately seeking attention.

“The offending is not in the realm of emptying people’s bank accounts, it’s more in the avenue of what could be regarded as attention,” she said on March 18.

“I would submit it’s something she was lacking (during her childhood)”.

It’s attention Azzopardi has been receiving, but not in a way she enjoys.

On March 18 in Picton Court, Ms Shiels claimed her client had been hounded by the media and labelled “Australia’s biggest con woman” in the press.

Ms Shiels painted a picture of her client as a mentally ill young woman who has been unfairly persecuted by the media (despite the fact that NewsLocal was the only media outlet following the case).

On March 25, Magistrate Douglass told Picton Court he accepted Azzopardi has anxiety, depression, and established borderline personality disorder and that she was affected by mental illness at the time of the offences.

Samantha Azzopardi is accused of calling herself Harper Hernandez among other aliases.

However, he said the continued serious offending prevented him from dismissing the charges on mental health grounds.

“One notes there have been a number of diagnoses for (Azzopardi) and there have been a number of years since the diagnoses and yet she still continues to commit the offences,” he said.

According to the court documents, Azzopardi was also diagnosed with a condition called pseudologia fantastica, which manifests itself as compulsive and pathological lying.

According to Ms Shiels, Azzopardi has only recently acknowledged she is living with mental illnesses.

“She knows now for the first time that something isn’t right,” she told Picton Court on March 18.

“She said that when she commits these offences, afterwards she snaps out of it and it’s like she was blacked out when she committed the offences.”

Her lawyer said Azzopardi has engaged with treatment for the first time and turned a corner.

“This is her realisation that she‘s not all bad and she’s someone that can be fixed,” she said.

Hopefully she will continue on the path and “Australia’s biggest con woman” won’t be seen in court again.