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A 49-year-old bricklayer sold almost everything he owned and spent more than 36 hours on a bus, convinced he was travelling toward a farm, a partner, and a fresh start. When Edimar Rocha Martins reached Belo Horizonte on Sunday 11 October, he walked the streets with photographs of the woman he had come to meet and asked strangers whether they recognised her. A local radio station told him the truth: “Jéssica” was a character generated by artificial intelligence. There was no farm waiting, no invitation, and no woman behind the videos.
Who is Edimar Rocha Martins?
Martins is a bricklayer, originally from Araguatins in Tocantins, who had been living in Imperatriz, in the interior of Maranhão. He is divorced and was on leave from work through Brazil’s social security institute, the INSS. In interviews after the trip, he said he had grown lonely after his mother’s death and saw in the woman from the videos the hope of starting a new life. He said he no longer wanted to stay in Imperatriz, telling reporters he had liked the town while his mother was alive. “I liked it there when my mother was alive,” he said.
The woman who promised a farm
The account Martins followed presented itself as Jéssica Oliveira, and also went by Jéssica Fazendeira, which translates loosely as “Jéssica the farmer.” The profile had more than 300,000 followers and published videos produced with artificial intelligence, appearing on TikTok, Kwai and Facebook and advertising products from an online sales platform. The videos had a realistic appearance and voice and were aimed above all at a male audience. Across different clips, she described herself in some videos as a widow of four years and said she lived alone on her farm and missed having company; other reports noted she also presented herself as divorced. She said she was looking for a man who was not afraid of change.
The promises were specific. In one video, she tells a prospective partner he could come and live like royalty on a farm that would become his; in another, she offers to support him financially so he could stop working. “I want to support you,” she says in one of the clips.
Selling everything for the journey
Martins left Imperatriz on Friday, 9 October. To pay for the trip, he sold his belongings, telling TV Mirante he had sold all his things and was left with nothing. Reports put the distance at about 2,100 kilometres, or roughly 1,300 miles; most Brazilian outlets describe it as more than 2,000 km, and the figures vary slightly between publications. He travelled more than 36 hours by bus and arrived in Belo Horizonte on Sunday 11 October, without a confirmed address for the woman he hoped to find.
The discovery in Belo Horizonte
With photographs but no address, Martins began his search without even knowing where the woman lived, showing her picture to passers-by. He approached a reporter at Rádio Itatiaia and asked for help letting Jéssica know he had arrived. Instead, station staff told him that Jéssica did not exist and that the images had been created by artificial intelligence. He told G1 that at that moment he felt deceived. Reflecting on it, he said anyone could fall for it. He was now alone in an unfamiliar city with no money to get home.
What the account’s creator said
The person behind the account has not been publicly identified. After the case spread, they posted a video in the persona’s voice saying the aim had been to generate engagement for sales, not relationships, and denied that Martins had received any invitation to travel or that the profile had held private conversations with followers. In a reactivation video filmed as an interview with an AI-generated male character, the persona said she had been the first AI to be cancelled for no reason and explained that the account had been switched off and then back on. The reinstated TikTok videos and a linked Instagram account now carry AI-generated labels, though those labels do not establish what Martins saw before his trip.
Speaking to G1, the creator said the character had been built in 2025 to attract an audience and advertise products as an affiliate on e-commerce platforms, and that he was now afraid because of the attention and did not know whether others had used the videos to contact people on other platforms. He called Martins’s account of their conversations “a lie.” That timeline conflicts with Martins’s own, in which the contact began in 2020, a gap the reporting does not resolve. The profile itself went offline after the backlash and later reappeared. A consumer-protection body requested a retraction video, and a post in which the character used biblical references about the creation of man and woman was removed.
No police report, no confirmed crime
In a note, the Civil Police of Minas Gerais said they had found no record of a police report related to the case in their systems. Authorities said that creating a character with artificial intelligence is not in itself a crime, though using the technology to deceive people and obtain an unlawful advantage could constitute fraud. No official finding has described the episode as a confirmed scam.
Getting home
Unable to find the woman, Martins was referred to Belo Horizonte’s reception and assistance unit for migrants, where he was given assistance, a shower, food, and guidance about the risks of online scams. The service also arranged a bus ticket, and he left Belo Horizonte on Tuesday 13 October. The return journey lasted around 50 hours, and during it he fell ill and needed treatment at an emergency care unit. By Thursday 15 October he was back in Imperatriz, staying at his sister’s home.
Back home, and a new ‘Jéssica’
Martins has said he does not regret the trip. In a video posted after his return, he said he would find someone else and would go back to the same city to do it. “No one should hang their head,” he said.
The most recent turn came on 21 October. Now living at his sister’s house, Martins adopted a cat, named her Jéssica, and made his debut as a digital creator. In a sponsored video for the pet retailer Petlove, he recalls the failed journey and the discovery that his virtual girlfriend did not exist, before introducing his new companion. “I went after a cat and ended up finding one,” he jokes. The line lands because gata in Brazilian slang means both a female cat and an attractive woman. Within 24 hours, the clip passed 15,000 views and neared 7,000 shares, and Martins has gathered more than 6,000 followers, with brands and companies now approaching him for partnerships and advertising.
He set out across Brazil for a woman who was never real and came home with a cat, a small following, and advertising offers. For now, the one Jéssica in his life is the one with four legs.
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