LANGUISHING in a jail cell 1000's of miles from house, Emmy Bamberger could not assist however suppose: "How the f*** did I get right here?"
However that also wasn't sufficient to wake her as much as the sinister actuality of her scenario - that she had fallen into an elaborate internet of lies spun by a serial con artist.
Emmy had grow to be greatest friends with Annika Dekker, a 'Swedish' lady she met whereas travelling the world after highschool.
The pair have been inseparable, however unbeknown to the American, Annika was truly Aussie Samantha Azzorpadi, a pathological liar who glided by 40 aliases and had duped dozens of individuals.
Her four-month ordeal has now been informed in a brand new Paramount+ documentary, Con Woman, which explores how the scammer, 34, schemed her means into the lives of unsuspecting victims - for no obvious motive or financial acquire.
Traumatised Emmy tells the documentary: "Realizing what I do know now about her and the a number of victims that she has flipped their lives the wrong way up and has induced years of trauma and ache... sure, she's the satan."
Net of lies
Graduating from her California highschool in 2014, Emmy - then aged 18 - determined to journey the world searching for inspiration for her writing profession.
Shortly after touchdown in Sydney, Australia, she met a Swedish lady who claimed to be of the identical age known as Annika whereas staying at a hostel.
"I do keep in mind folks not liking her in our little group and pondering she was a little bit bizarre and unusual - I did not fairly catch the weirdness," Emmy says.
The pair ultimately grew shut and Annika - who was truly Samantha - wasted no time feeding her a collection of untruths.
Emmy thought nothing of it when Samantha informed her she was an airline heiress, however started to get suspicious when her new good friend would not expose an excessive amount of details about her life.
After urgent her, she ultimately admitted she was not an airline heiress - solely to prepare dinner up an elaborate story worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Emmy explains: "She [said] 'I am not precisely an airline heiress. I'm the daughter of Interpol brokers.' She mainly grew up operating her complete life and so she had been in several personal colleges and completely different international locations."
To make sure her story was plausible, Samantha even produced quite a few snaps of herself in locations comparable to Denmark, Sweden, and different European international locations.
She additionally claimed to have "keepers" who took care of her, as a result of she was not often in a position to see her mother and father.
'Every part shifted'
Not content material together with her fictitious life, Samantha quickly took issues even additional - claiming that she had simply acquired medical take a look at outcomes that proved she was truly a 14-year-old lady.
"That is the second the place I can particularly keep in mind every little thing shifting," says Emmy.
"Rapidly this cool 18-year-old lady was not this individual anymore. She's a 14-year little lady who doesn’t have a birthday, has mother and father she doesn't see, and has solely seen the world by means of the eyes of her keepers.
“It simply become such a tragic story, which stored me in her internet. I liked her and I used to be defending her from imminent hazard.
"Like who would imagine that story?"
Decided to tug Emmy additional into her orbit, Samantha then informed her that she was at risk from a mysterious group of people that had all of her private particulars and have been out to get her.
Emmy remembers: "She by no means explicitly stated they have been anybody specifically. It was identical to Boogeyman dangerous folks. There have been pages of stuff about me.
"My household's names, their addresses, their cellphone numbers, issues about my associates. It had legit passwords of mine. Simply lots of data that did not look like you may Google on the time.
Samantha hatched a plan for them to go on the run, claiming that as a way to maintain each of them secure, they must stick collectively.
Emmy says: "She was at all times ensuring I used to be extraordinarily conscious of individuals and their physique language. That is when she stated I wanted a brand new identification.
"I used to be underneath the impression that me and all people I liked was at risk. I'm scared out of my f***ing thoughts."
Kidnap suspect
Because the pair travelled throughout Australia, Emmy was in a position to choose up a pretend ID underneath the identify Amy Fisher.
One evening, Samantha complained of a headache, which regarded so severe that Emmy thought she was "exhibiting indicators of a stroke."
Panicked, she rushed her to a close-by hospital, the place the scammer continued to insist she was a 14-year-old youngster.
Rising suspicious of Emmy in consequence, medical doctors known as the police and she or he was arrested for the kidnap of an unknown minor and suspected drug trafficking.
Emmy says: "They suppose I kidnapped this lady and so they suppose that I pumped her full of medication and that I am human trafficking her."
After interrogating her at a police station, they found the pretend ID and bundled her into jail for what Emmy says was "a really very long time".
"I used to be pondering like how the f*** did I get right here?", she says. "Like that is so off base from hopping round backpacking and I used to be only a nervous f***ing wreck."
Emmy was ultimately hauled in entrance of a decide who ordered her to be freed after paying a positive, as a result of police couldn't show that she had kidnapped a minor.
In the meantime, Samantha escaped her hospital mattress with a needle nonetheless in her arm.
Reuniting, the pair went on the run but once more and this time went right into a "secure home" in Sydney to keep away from additional detection.
Emmy was so distraught over being stored in a cabin unable to make use of her cellphone, or make contact together with her family members that she made up a narrative about her vacationer visa expiring simply to flee.
Lies unravel
When Emmy boarded a aircraft to go away again to the States, Samantha despatched her a message warning her that she was at risk and requested her to fulfill up in Canada.
Believing she was underneath menace, Emmy flew to Vancouver to fulfill her - however this time it was the smallest of particulars that lastly lifted the veil from over her eyes.
Emmy explains: "We get to this backpacker's home and whenever you present up you are supposed to jot down down your identify and what nation you are from and she or he writes down Sweden.
"One evening these two women come up and this lady was Swedish. When she's signing her identify, she sees that there is one other Swedish lady. She says 'hey, how are you' in Swedish.
"And [Samantha] seems like she's a little bit scared and she or he's like 'It has been a very long time since I've spoken Swedish'."
Now 4 months into their friendship, Emmy discovered herself unable to belief Samantha and left her in Calgary, Canada - by no means to see her once more.
Serial offender
Emmy later discovered that Annika was in truth Samantha, a serial con lady who has dedicated 100 offences - together with defrauding households and authorities in Australia, Canada, and Eire.
Astonishingly, she had already achieved infamy on the opposite facet of the world after falsely claiming to be a sufferer of intercourse trafficking in Eire in October 2013.
Discovered outdoors Dublin Common Submit Workplace, she was dubbed the 'GPO Woman' and controversially launched with out cost after it emerged she was in truth 24 years previous.
After leaving Emmy, she informed Canadian police that she had been a sufferer of abuse and had escaped from a cult, however after an costly investigation, a fingerprint evaluation introduced up her case in Eire the earlier yr.
Serving two months in jail, she was then deported again to Australia - solely to embark on different weird schemes.
In 2016, she enrolled in a college in New South Wales claiming to be 13. She was later discovered and sentenced to a yr in jail.
One other rip-off got here in 2019 when she moved right into a French couple's house to work as a nanny for his or her two youngsters utilizing a falsified identification.
She ultimately took the boys to a psychological well being facility the place she claimed to be a 14-year-old who had been abused by her uncle.
She pleaded responsible to youngster stealing, theft, and property deception and was ordered to spend two years in jail in 2021.
Throughout her trial, it was revealed that she had been recognized with pseudologia fantastica, which causes her to lie incessantly usually for no acquire in any respect.
Samantha's elaborate tales not solely ripped her victims' lives aside, however induced cops to waste a whole bunch of 1000's on long-winded investigations.
Final November, she was jailed for eight months after claiming to be an abused 14-year-old French lady.
Con Woman is offered to stream on Paramount +
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