Serial conwoman Samantha Azzopardi facing 10 years in jail for fraud after latest sex trafficking lie

A SERIAL conwoman who posed as a Sydney schoolgirl, aged 13, could spend as many as 10 years behind bars, a court has heard.

A SERIAL NSW conwoman who has duped authorities in three countries with a child sex trafficking lie is facing up to 10 years in jail for fraud, after posing as a teenage foster child.

Samantha Azzopardi, 28, faced a Sydney court on Wednesday charged over a scam in which she posed as a 13-year-old schoolgirl named Harper Hart.

She received nearly $20,000 worth of services from the NSW government and charities after telling authorities she was a sex trafficking victim when she turned up at a Hornsby school, north of Sydney.

Azzopardi pleaded guilty to four fraud offences earlier this month.

Samantha Azzopardi was charged with public nuisance in Canada, after fooling Calgary police with the same story she told to their Irish counterparts. Picture: Calgary Police Service

Before her lies were discovered in June, she was given an iPad, phone and Opal card from the not-for-profit Burdekin House, an ambulance transfer paid for by Good Shepard Australia, and medication from the NSW Department of Family and Community Services.

Hornsby Local Court on Wednesday heard the cost of her lies to Burdekin House totalled more than $10,200. That included case management services.

The department spent about $6700 on medication, while Azzopardi’s charges also cover $1440 worth of counselling from a state government victim services group.

She appeared via video link on Wednesday and kept her head down the entire time, quietly answering “yes” when magistrate Daniel Reiss asked if she understood the outcome of the hearing, AAP reported.

Aurora Hepburn was the alias she used in Calgary, one of 40 she has been known to use. Picture: Calgary Police Service

The 28-year-old has been in custody since her arrest earlier this month.

She has not applied for bail and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, according to court documents outlining police arguments for denying her initial bail.

The document cites her “extensive history of providing false documentation, obtaining passports in false names and assuming identities of other persons” in Queensland and Western Australia.

Azzopardi has previously told a similar sex trafficking story to authorities in Ireland and Canada, which forced both countries to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating what turned out to be lies.

Irish authorities were dumbfounded in 2013 when Azzopardi was found wandering the streets of Dublin and tricked them into thinking she was a trafficking victim from eastern Europe.

She claimed she could not speak but tricked them into believing her story by drawing pictures apparently showing a woman being raped.

The 28-year-old has repeatedly posed as a teenager and told police she is a victim of child sex trafficking.

She was deported after the European nation spent nearly AUD $400,000 trying to identify her.

The following year she was charged with public mischief after walking into a clinic in Calgary, Canada, and repeating a similar story.

The serial con artist, originally from Campbelltown in Sydney’s southwest, is known to have used more than 40 aliases, including Annika Dekker, Aurora Hepburn, Dakota Johnson, Lindsay Coughlin and Emily Peet.

News.com.au has previously revealed how during her travels, she drew fellow traveller Emily Bamberger into her web of deceit, resulting in the American teenager’s deportation.

Azzopardi is due to be sentenced on July 19, after the court has considered a psychiatric assessment.