Anna Ekelöf
Anna Eleonora Ekelöf (fl. 1765), was a Swedish serial impostor. She committed fraud with a series of false identities, posing as mamsell, noblewoman, officer, Count and the Crown Prince of Sweden before her arrest in 1765. First fraud In June 1765, Anna Ekelöf was arrested dressed in male clothing in Värmland near the Swedish-Norwegian border. Being put on trial for investigation, she was revealed to have committed a series of identity frauds. Witnesses testified that she was first encountered in the border area dressed as a mamsell (that is, an unmarried woman of the well to do Burgher class or the unmarried daughter of a clergyman), claiming to be on the run to marry her beloved, who was not approved by her parents. After this, she dressed herself as a nobleman with a white wig and introduced herself as Count Carl Ekeblad, who had been forced to escape Sweden dressed as a woman after having been exiled from Stockholm due to an incident, and who was awaiting the King's forgiveness to return. As Count Ekeblad, she had recruited a retinue of Swedes and Norwegians, among them the runaway Swedish farmer Olof Persson, the runaway Swedish baker Schutlz, who acted as servants, as well as the wife of Police officer Istmin, Emerentia Schröder, "To dance and ammuse himself with". She was housed at the Löfsnäs manor in Norway, belong to the sister of Emerentia. During her time as Count, Ekelöf lived a "debauched life with drinking, foul language, foolhardily riding and a never ending use of tobacco", and was also known to threaten and strike people who opposed her. She defended herself by saying that she had only acted in such a way to be trustworthy in her role as a man. Second fraud At the customary office of Magnebro, she then had rumors spread which let it be known that she was in fact the Swedish Crown Prince in disguise who, in a conflict with riksråd Count Carl Gustaf Tessin and the nobility party of the parliament, had come to prepare a coup d'etat to depose the government. This was in fact not an unlikely rumor, as there was at the time many serious rumors circulating about planned uprisings against the government since the Coup of 1756 by Queen Louisa Ulrika. The actual Crown Prince was in the same age and with the same fragile built as Ekelöf, and Anna Ekelöf was furthermore equipped with a vast and up to date knowledge about the current political situation. When rumors reached the Danish-Norwegian authorities in Oslo that someone alleged to be the Swedish heir to the throne was present at the border, Ekelöf was taken captive and brought to Oslo, where her identity as a woman was discovered. She was apparently allowed to return to the border, but was soon after arrested by the Swedish authorities, who subjected her to a physical examination to establish her gender. Trial Anna Ekelöf admitted posing as a Count, but denied to have ever posed