Anna Ekelöf

Who is Anna Ekelöf?

Anna Eleonora Ekelöf 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.

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 serial of identity frauds. Witnesses testified that she was first encountered in the border area dressed as a mamsell, claiming to be on the run to marry her beloved, who was not approved by her parents. After this, she dresed herself as a nobleman with a white wig and introduced herself as Count Carl Ekeblad, who had merely been forced to escape Sweden dressed as a woman after having been exiled from Stockholm due to an incident, and who was merely 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".