A 49-year-old German woman who had been posing as the empress of a non-existent kingdom and rubbing shoulders with Italy’s elite had been accidentally unmasked as a fraud.
Sandra Nicole Martinez, who had adorned herself with titles like ‘Her Royal Highness’ or ‘Her Imperial Highness”, had become a regular at exclusive parties and social events in Italy’s capital city after being introduced to them by legendary Italian socialite Guya Sospisio a few years ago. Apparently, no one questioned her claims of being the Empress of the Imperial House of Glodeni, a royal house with headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, even though a simple Google search would have revealed that Glodeni is actually a town in the tiny Eastern European country of Moldova. Martinez was eventually unmasked as a fraudster completely by accident.