A 66-year-old Revere woman was indicted on wire fraud charges after federal prosecutors say she spent years convincing an elderly former student that she stood to inherit valuable farmland in Brazil, then persuaded him to hand over more than $1 million to help her claim it. The farmland, prosecutors allege, never existed.
Maria Auxiliadora Rezende was arrested and charged by complaint on Nov. 10, federal prosecutors said, allegedly just as she was planning to flee the country for Brazil, according to The Boston Globe. A federal grand jury in Boston has since indicted her on one count of wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. She is a Brazilian national who has been a Massachusetts lawful permanent resident since at least 2012, according to court records cited by Boston.com.
A Relationship Rooted in the Classroom
Rezende and the alleged victim, an 85-year-old retired professor, first met in 2013 through a class he taught, according to the criminal complaint cited by Boston.com. The two eventually entered into a romantic relationship, prosecutors allege, and it was within that relationship that Rezende allegedly began laying the groundwork for the scheme. Court records describe the victim as suffering from end-stage renal disease, confusion, and a medical assessment suggesting Alzheimer's dementia.
Prosecutors allege Rezende told the man she was the illegitimate daughter of Iris Rezende, who served as mayor of Goiânia, Brazil, from 2017 until his death in 2021, according to court records. She allegedly led him to believe she stood to inherit valuable farmland near Goiânia as a result of that lineage — and that he could share in the windfall if he helped her claim it.
A Fake Inheritance Tax and a Phantom Contract
Around 2020, Rezende allegedly introduced the victim to purported attorneys who would supposedly help secure the farmland. Prosecutors say she persuaded him to help pay a purported Brazilian inheritance tax and legal fees in expectation of future farmland profits, and emails and messages obtained by federal prosecutors show the man agreeing to pay off the inheritance taxes owed on the farm in exchange for a minority ownership stake.
The purported attorneys allegedly drafted a contract creating a holding company to own the farmland, assigning the victim a 49 percent interest while Rezende held the remaining 51 percent, according to court records. Federal investigators found probable cause that the purported attorney had used a real Brazilian attorney's identity without his knowledge, the records state. The victim's family's lawyer contacted that real attorney, who said he knew of no farmland and was not in contact with either Rezende or the victim.
Money Moved for Years, Prosecutors Say
Over several years, Rezende allegedly obtained more than $1 million from the professor, according to the Globe's reporting on the affidavit. Prosecutors allege she was aided by associates. The alleged scheme also involved purported legal fees for the attorneys' services.
The victim reportedly began questioning the scheme around April 2025. A federal agent spoke last month with a Brazilian attorney hired by the victim's family, according to court records, who determined that Rezende was not related to Iris Rezende and that no matching farmland could be located. Prosecutors allege the farmland, the inheritance tax, and the legal fees were all fictitious.
Facing Up to 20 Years if Convicted
If convicted, Rezende faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Her attorney, Forest O'Neill-Greenberg, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday, per Boston.com's reporting.
The case lands amid a sharp rise in reported losses tied to fraud against older Americans. The Federal Trade Commission has reported that total fraud losses among adults 60 and older rose roughly fourfold from 2020 to 2024, climbing from about $600 million to $2.4 billion, an increase the agency says was largely driven by reports of losses exceeding $100,000, according to the Federal Trade Commission. A separate FTC accounting found older adults reported $277 million in losses to romance scams specifically, up 16 percent from the prior year.
Federal authorities have brought similar cases elsewhere. The Justice Department has reported that twin brothers from Ghana and an American woman pleaded guilty to roles in an international network accused of running romance-fraud schemes that targeted mostly older Americans, totaling roughly $9 million, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio. In a separate case, federal prosecutors charged a Brazilian woman with posing as an immigration lawyer and defrauding clients of approximately $700,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
