Maya Mancini had it all. Brazilian, this model looked exactly like Alessandra Ambrosio, a real Brazilian model for the Victoria’s Secret lingerie brand. And for good reason: Maya Mancini does not exist. The identity of this young woman was fabricated by two Italian women, Valeria Satta and Manuela Passeron, who trapped Roberto Cazzaniga, a 44-year-old professional volleyball player, for thirteen years. The two women impersonated Alessandra Ambrosio, reappropriating her photos and sending them to sell dreams to the athlete.
More than 1400 transfers sent
A deception that really worked: the volleyball player actually believed he was having a relationship with the imaginary model, as reported by the Italian version of Vanity Fair. Roberto Cazzaniga thus paid hundreds of thousands of euros to his artificial sweetheart, whom he never had the leisure to see in thirteen years, but with whom he was able to exchange telephone conversations (Valeria Satta played the voice of Maya Mancini).
Between 2008 and 2021, the athlete notably sent the two scammers more than 1,400 transfers in the form of postal orders or bank transfers in order to help Maya Mancini pay fees for medical consultations and surgical operations, necessary to take responsible for his serious pathologies, invented by the two crooks. They explained that they were unable to pay because their family accounts had been blocked after the death of their great-grandparents.
“Incessant business trips”
A crudely constructed lie to which Roberto Cazzaniga nevertheless gave credence. “We never saw each other, not once. She found a thousand excuses, illness, work. However, I fell in love with this voice, call after call, I was a fool. Contacts only through cell phone, almost daily. Calls before going to training or in the evening, at bedtime. How could I give him all that money? here, two thousand there… Finally, we arrived at a total of 700,000 euros Now that this nightmare is over, it’s as if I woke up from a coma that made me lose. three years of life”, the sportsman told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, in 2021. Roberto Cazzaniga really thought he was talking to top model Alessandra Ambrosio: “I never had any doubt: for me, it “It was really her.” The player explained that he believed her various excuses: “Incessant business trips and this serious heart condition for which she told me she was often hospitalized.”
Finally, in 2022, the two liars fell: the Finance Guard, Italian customs and financial police, searched the homes of the two accused and found nearly 74,000 euros linked to their illicit activities. Arrested, Valeria Satta and Manuela Passeron are called to appear before the court in Cagliari, Sardinia, on July 9, 2024.
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