Australian conwoman Samantha Azzopardi investigated in Finding Samantha
Cult member, orphan, sex trafficking victim... she’s Australia’s answer to Leonardo DiCaprio, minus the riches. A new investigation has examined Samantha Azzopardi’s bizarre and tragic motive.
Just who exactly is Samantha Azzopardi? In Ireland the young Australian woman was the victim of human sex trafficking. In Queensland she was an orphan who had suffered sexual abuse. In the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Azzopardi said she’d fled Sweden before becoming the quasi-adopted daughter of a local pastor.
None of the above, thankfully for Azzopardi, is true.
Azzopardi has more than 100 aliases and in 2022 faced court on her 100th charge after posing as a 15-year-old cult member coerced into sex. Also not true.
When Azzopardi was sentenced in November 2022 – for pretending to be a 14-year-old French victim of sex trafficking – her Legal Aid lawyer told the court she had a severe personality disorder after suffering physical and sexual abuse in her formative years.
Waverley Local Court heard Azzopardi’s mother had once tried to kill her.
Azzopardi is Australia’s answer to Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2020 Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can. Except on an industrial scale.
A new podcast from RTÉ, Finding Samantha investigates Azzopardi’s tangled frauds and deceits and attempts to understand her motivations.
She did not appear to be getting rich quick. Her only fame was notoriety – and not the profitable sort of notoriety amassed by hip-hop and reality television stars.
In fact Azzopardi’s main motivation seemed to be coercing people into looking after her. Did she just want parents?
Having your humanity exploited by someone conducting some kind of insane scheme leaves a particular kind of pain. One victim described it as horrific, another said she felt violated.
The first charge recorded against Azzopardi was in Rockhampton in Queensland in 2017. She was 19 years old and operating under the name Lindsay.
She tried to defraud someone and disappeared until 2010 when she wanted to enrol as Dakota Johnson at a Brisbane high school. She took with her a pink notebook detailing horrific details of sexual assault she had allegedly suffered.
The podcast is jointly hosted by Australian podcaster and audio journalist Sharon Davis and Irish journalist Nicoline Greer.
Azzopardi caused a big stir in Ireland in 2013 when she was found wandering O’Connell St in Dublin pretending to be the 14-year-old victim of a sex trafficking ring.
She refused to speak and investigators instead formed their opinion after viewing her drawings of guns.
Azzopardi, in appearance a homeless waif, spent a month at Temple Street Children’s Hospital, the cost of which, coupled with an investigation involving thousands of police officers, cost Ireland about €350,000 ($380,000).
It turned out that Azzopardi, actually 25, had travelled to Ireland on a fraudulent passport and under a fake name.
Her phone search history revealed she’d researched children’s hospitals in Ireland before making her appearance on O’Connell St.
Why did she do it? It’s the maddening question running beneath the madness.
Finding Samantha is a gripping investigation into a bizarre story – and while this podcast might be light on production, it is heavy on intrigue.
In the queue
Shadow of Doubt – The Australian’s new gripping investigative podcast into a sex abuse case based on repressed memories. Should be on the top of everyone’s playlist.
Believe in Magic – A new BBC podcast that investigates a teenager who died after claiming to have a brain tumour. But was she ever really sick?
Naturebang – For a change of pace, just a nice podcast about nature.
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