Surrounded by reporters from all over the world, the woman who sparked one of the biggest controversies in Australian reality TV history hardly blinked.
Emese Fajk’s latest transformation was on full display before the world’s media last week.
The woman accused of carrying out a series of cons around the world — including perhaps the biggest scandal in Australian reality TV history — was front and centre at a press conference in war-torn Ukraine.
There she was, speaking confidently to reporters next to fighters from the US and the UK who had joined the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine.
“The purpose of this (press conference) is to be able to tell what is really happening in the legion and how things really are,” she said before introducing the foreign fighters.
The new role is a world away from the controversy she left behind in Australia in 2020 when she tried to purchase a $4.2 million home on Channel 9’s reality show The Block but could not pay for it.
Gone is the short hair and glasses from her appearance on the show. She has replaced them with camouflage gear.
In a recent photograph from the war zone she holds what appears to be an M4A1 assault rifle.
But her new life is not without problems.
“This is the ‘I’m tired of the Ukrainian uniform and I wear my own stuff’ phase,” she wrote in a recent photograph.
And a volunteer from the unit she now works with has expressed concern about what she is doing in Ukraine.
“I have every reason to believe … she came to Ukraine to legitimate herself by joining the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine,” the source told the Daily Mail.
“I am genuinely concerned about how her actions and behaviour will affect the reputation and operation of the legion.”
The source said she was calling herself Abigel, a name she used after fleeing Australia for Portugal.
Confronted by Australian media over her new role, Ms Fajk said she was treated badly by Australian media and did not want to talk about Ukraine.
“The way the Australian media treated everything and every piece of information that I’ve given … I’m not going to give anyone anything,” she told The Australian.
The Hungarian-born 30-year-old first came to the attention of Australians when she snapped up Block couple Jimmy and Ram’s luxury home for an eye-watering $4.256 million in 2020.
But the elation that followed was short lived when Fajk was unable to complete the sale.
The scandal that followed saw Fajk accused of presenting receipts of bank transfers falsely indicating the money had been paid.
“It’s something no one ever saw coming,” contestant Jimmy told Channel 9. “We’ve pretty much been conned.”
Tam said the would-be buyer made the couple feel like they knew her.
“She actually cried with us,” Tam said. “It was like we knew her as a friend … it’s almost like she’s tarnished our experience.”
Fajk, who claims she worked as a cyber security specialist before moving to Australia from New York City, hit back at suggestions she was a con woman.
She blamed the saga on lawyers and a “technical part of the settlement”.
“I provided everything I was asked,” she wrote on social media.
“Yet absolutely none of it was considered or used. I reached out, I tried to make this a conversation and nothing,” Fajk wrote.
“Despite all this, I’m working on fixing the issue that I was part of as I was too lenient and trusting. I have a new firm behind me and I reached out to those who are behind the technical part of settlement and we are working this out.
“No one bothered to talk to me while this was in the making for a month.”
In February 2021, several months after trying to buy the property, Fajk announced she was “giving up” on The Block house.
The Daily Mail reported that she fled Australia for Europe and was pictured hiding out in a disguise in Madeira off the coast of Portugal having assumed the name Abigel Fuchs.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, a man claiming to have met Fajk on Tinder, Steve Silva, revealed The Block bidder had been accused of sending her Portuguese landlord fake “proof of payment” screenshots.
The publication also spoke to the rental owner, who chose to remain anonymous, confirming the alleged con.
According to Silva, he realised all was not as it seemed when Fajk claimed that she’d gone into isolation because her landlord had registered a positive Covid test.
In WhatsApp messages, Fajk claimed she was going to the hospital to get tested. But when Silva waited for Fajk to turn up at the hospital, she never showed.
Emails obtained by the publication also see the accused Block scammer explaining that she had to leave Australia “because it got to the point where I just couldn’t exist there anymore”.
“Yes, you’re right, I’m hiding. Not from the law … If I was in trouble with the law, I wouldn’t have been able to leave (Australia). I’m hiding from my problems and my life,” she had written.
Her apartment’s owner went on to tell the publication that Fajk sent him a screengrab showing an alleged $4215 ANZ Bank transfer for her rent payment.
He said the money never arrived, and all he had received was 200 Euro in cash.
When The Block scandal first began to unravel, a former partner of Fajk reached out to A Current Affair after discovering she had made the winning bid, claiming he had been duped by the woman of mystery as well.
“She has stolen money from people like myself – £15,000 ($A26,470) – and many others. When I met her she was pretending to be a cyber security expert and working for the United Nations,” the ex-partner, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
The man provided a series of text and WhatsApp conversations where he’s seen requesting money back from his former partner.
“I will have your money, all of it, in cash, (sic) on Monday at 12,” Fajk had written.
The ex said Fajk presented him with a bank statement in which she had appeared to transfer £50,000 ($A88,000), but the money never arrived.
– with Nick Bond and Bella Fowler
Originally published as Alleged Block conwoman Emese Fajk holds press conference in war-torn Ukraine
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