In 2023, Amanda Ungaro, a Brazilian model who was brought to the United States on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane when she was 16, was trying to build a new life in South Florida with her teenage son, far removed from the modeling world she had grown up in New York.

Two years later, Ungaro, 41, was bound in handcuffs and thrown into an immigration detention center in Miami-Dade where she spent three months of misery before being abruptly transported to Louisiana and then deported back to Brazil.

Ungaro, a former diplomat in the first Trump administration, came to the attention of police in April 2024 after authorities received an anonymous tip that she and her husband, Joao Araujo, a Brazilian plastic surgeon, were conducting cosmetic procedures without a license at their wellness center in Aventura.

Her arrest by Aventura police last June led to her being deported to Brazil in October. Ungaro claims her deportation was instigated by her former partner, Paolo Zampolli, a longtime Trump ally and a Trump administration official. She accused Zampolli of using his influence to pressure the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to deport her to gain custody of their 16-year-old son.

Now she is fighting back.

Ungaro, who was part of President Donald Trump and Melania’s social circle for years, issued a number of angry posts on X directed at the first lady, the president as well as former U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi.

“I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life. I will go all the way — I am not afraid. Maybe you should be afraid of what I know … of who you are, and who your husband is,” she said in a post dated April 8 that tagged the first lady’s X account.

She threatened legal action against the first lady “and your pedophile husband.”

To Bondi, she said in a post: “Do you fully understand the information I possess regarding you and the individuals associated with you? I strongly advise you to consider the seriousness of these matters. Any actions taken against me or attempts to escalate this situation could have significant legal consequences.”

Epstein’s name was not mentioned in Ungaro’s posts, which have since been deleted.

But the following day, April 9, Melania Trump made a rare public statement from the White House disassociating herself from Epstein. She claimed that any suggestion that she and Epstein were anything other than passing social acquaintances was unfounded.

She also said she was never a victim of Epstein and, despite what Epstein said in the past, the sex trafficker did not introduce her to Trump.

“The first time I crossed paths with Epstein was in the year 2000, at an event Donald and I attended together. At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings,” the first lady said.

Ungaro continued her posts after the first lady’s statement.

“I have nothing left to lose in my life,” Ungaro wrote on X that same day. “I will tear down the entire system — be careful with me bitch.”

It is unclear whether Melania’s news conference was in reaction to Ungaro’s posts on X.

Ungaro, in a phone interview from Brazil, confirmed that she posted the remarks on X. She said she felt betrayed by Melania, with whom she had been friends for two decades.

She said she had an expired visa and, before her arrest, she had applied for a new one.

She said she reached out unsuccessfully to Melania – and then learned that Zampolli was responsible for having her picked up and jailed by ICE. She spent three months in a Miami detention center before she was deported in October.

Zampolli, 56, is a former modeling agent who met Ungaro when she was 17. They were together for nearly two decades, and worked as diplomats in the first Trump administration. She was a United Nations ambassador to Grenada, and Zampolli was ambassador to Dominica, both Caribbean nations.

He now serves as a special envoy for global partnerships in the Trump administration, and remains close to Trump and the first lady. Zampolli has said that he introduced Trump to Melania.

Zampolli, whom Trump also appointed to the Kennedy Center board, reached out to a top ICE official and asked that she be deported, according to the New York Times. The Times reported that the official, David Venturella, called ICE’s Miami office “to ensure” that agents would pick up Ungaro from jail before she could be given bail.

“During the call, Mr. Venturella noted that the case was important to someone close to the White House,” the Times reported.

Zampolli told the Times he only reached out to inquire about the process for Ungaro’s deportation.

The Miami Herald was unsuccessful in reaching Zampolli through the White House. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment about Ungaro’s allegations.

Zampolli’s name is mentioned about a dozen times in the Justice Department’s Epstein files. The files show that he was in Epstein’s orbit around the time that Trump met Melania in 1998. At one point, he was friends with the financier and the two discussed a business deal over buying a modeling agency, records show.

Ungaro gave an interview last week with the Spanish publication El Pais, where she described the flight she took on Epstein’s plane to the U.S. with her then-agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, and more than a dozen other girls in 2002, just before she turned 17.

She declined to tell The Miami Herald what information she has about Epstein or the Trumps, or others associated with them. But she did say she has damaging information.

As to the criminal charges, she denies that she and her husband were conducting any illegal procedures at their wellness center in Aventura.

“There was absolutely no fraud; that is a lie,” she said.

Ungaro lived with Araujo, 56, in a waterfront Sunny Isles Beach condo. But last June, police charged Ungaro and Araujo of running a med spa — offering liposuction, ear surgeries, Botox injections and fillers — without proper licensing. The duo were charged with organized scheme to defraud, grand theft and unlicensed practice of medicine.

Attorneys representing Ungaro and Araujo in the Miami criminal case declined to comment.

Police received anonymous tips about their business, Miami Beauty Academy, 2820 NE 214th St. in Aventura, according to the June 17, 2025, warrant written by Aventura Police Detective Kenneth Sealy. The Miami Beauty Academy, the warrant said, was “advertised as a top-notch hub for beauty and healthcare training.” The Academy is “permanently closed,” according to a Google search.

Ungaro’s case remains open, despite her being deported. She was issued an alias capias, meaning she would be arrested to face trial in the event she were to return to the U.S.

Araujo, however, is slated to go to trial in Miami on May 5, according to court records. He is on house arrest.

Araujo, a doctor in Brazil, was listed as a doctor and instructor at the med spa, but he was not licensed in the U.S., according to the arrest warrant.

In January 2025, months before their arrest, a female undercover detective visited the med spa under the guise of wanting a chin liposuction consultation. Ungaro and Araujo told the detective that the 40-minute procedure would be conducted using local anesthesia, according to the warrant. The pair also suggested she complete a laser procedure to tighten up the skin under her chin and take prescription weight loss medicine.

According to the warrant, about 25 minutes into the consultation, a licensed physician assistant arrived. They quoted the detective $5,500 for the procedures.

While the undercover police detective was at the consultation, Ungaro texted the physician assistant, telling her she didn’t want Araujo to do the consultation alone because the patient contacted them on Instagram and “we never know,” according to the warrant.

The physician assistant replied that she “will show up so it’s legal.”

Epstein was first arrested in 2005 in Palm Beach, on suspicion of sexually abusing dozens of high school girls at his Palm Beach mansion. He was given federal immunity in 2008 and served a short time in the Palm Beach County jail on prostitution charges.

In 2018, The Miami Herald published “Perversion of Justice,” an investigation that uncovered how Epstein, his lawyers and federal prosecutors worked to limit the scope of his crimes and gave him a secret plea deal which they kept from his victims.

As a result of the series, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opened a new case against Epstein the day after the series ran. He was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He died a month later at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. The medical examiner ruled his death a suicide by hanging.

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