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.
During her time as Count, Ekelöf lived a "debauched life with drinking, foul language, foolhardily riding and a never ending use of tobacco",[3] and was also known to threaten and strike people who opposed her.
[4] At the customary office of Magnebro, she then had rumors spread which let it be known that she was in fact the Swedish Crown Prince in disguise who, in a conflict with riksråd Count Carl Gustaf Tessin and the nobility party of the parliament, had come to prepare a coup d'etat to depose the government.
She stated that she was the 20-year-old daughter of a diseased sea captain in Gothenburg, and that she had run away from home to elope and meet her beloved, sergeant Magnus Sandberg, in Norway, where they could marry without the approval of his disapproving parents.
[9] The authorities, furthermore, suspected her to have eloped over the border with the purpose of performing an abortion, and suggested that her relationship with Magnus Sandberg was in fact incestuous.
On her way to court to hear her verdict, the prison carriage broke down, and the party was forced to spend the night on the farm of the peasant Nils Amundsson.