After duping Irish and Canadian authorities with horrific tales of being a child sexual abuse victim, serial troublemaker Samantha Azzopardi is returning home to Australia this week.
The 26-year-old from Sydney, who has used more than 40 aliases, was considered a flight risk and so devious Canadian authorities decided to keep her locked up until she boarded a flight back to Australia on Tuesday.
A Canadian Border Security Agency officer will escort Azzopardi on the flight, the Calgary Herald reported.
"Ms Azzopardi has a long history of impersonating others, lying and committing fraud," hearing officer Rhonda Macklin, at immigration proceedings in Calgary, said.
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Advertise with NZME.When Azzopardi was found wandering the streets of Dublin, Ireland, last year she led authorities to believe she was a teenage sex-trafficking victim from eastern Europe.
Azzopardi drew pictures apparently showing herself being raped, forcing Irish police to release the photo of her in a bid to find her identity.
Irish authorities spent A$375,000 ($404,000) on the investigation before discovering she was an Australian con artist and not a child.
Just six months after Azzopardi was deported from Ireland she managed to obtain an Australian passport and return to Ireland where she working as an au pair.
On September 16 this year Azzopardi, using the alias Aurora Hepburn, walked into a Calgary clinic claiming she was 14 and had been a victim of an abduction, sexual assault and torture.
Canadian authorities spent A$157,000 on their investigation before realising Azzopardi was the woman the Irish media dubbed a "Walter-Mitty-like con artist", referring to the daydreamer character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty created by author James Thurber that has been played by Danny Kaye and Ben Stiller in Hollywood films.
Azzopardi was charged with public mischief in Calgary and faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison, but after pleading guilty she was sentenced to the two months she had already served in custody.
- AAP
