A 37-year-old woman pretended to be a 12-year-old orphan for over a year and lived off the sack (4 photos)
Remember the famous horror film "Orphan," where a grown psychopath pretended to be a little girl and ended up in a foster home? Brazil just proved that any Hollywood scenario can be brought to life. 
There, cops arrested a 37-year-old woman who managed to pretend to be a 12-year-old child for 15 months and live off the full support of compassionate parishioners.
The scam of the century began simply: a woman walked into a local church, sat on the steps, and turned on "orphan mode." Through tears, she told the parishioners who wept with her a chilling story. She was supposedly only 12 years old, and had just escaped from her cruel parents who had abused her, starved her, and forced her to work hard. 
Naturally, people had a logical question: why did the "girl" look, to put it mildly, battered by life and mature? But the scammer had a brilliant excuse. She authoritatively claimed that she had a severe form of autism, for which she was taking tons of hormonal medications, which, in turn, had completely destroyed her childish body and transformed her into an adult woman. It worked perfectly. 
One local family was so touched by the "child's" grief that they decided to take her in. For over a year (15 whole months!), these kind people provided the "little one" with a separate room, bought her tons of clothes, fed her to the brim, and took her to doctors (the doctors were apparently in on the deal). All this time, the adult woman successfully feigned childish whims and innocence, enjoying a life of freedom. 
The happy ending ended when the adoptive parents finally began to have doubts and contacted the police. The cops ran the "girl" through databases and were quite stunned. They found a 37-year-old professional swindler with a real criminal record for fraud. Now, the Brazilian "Lolita" is back behind bars, and the deceived family is trying to come to terms with the realization of who they'd been spoon-feeding for a year.
