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Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment
- SilverElfin 11mo agoGreat investigative journalism. And so, so sad that these hopeful parents were scammed. Terrible that someone could do this to a child. The conclusion doesn’t give me hope though. The alleged scam organizations didn’t respond to questions and … that’s it? No one is going to jail?
- zwnow 11mo agoWell before one can go into jail there must be a trial. I am not religious but for people like this I sometimes hope hell would exist.
- Braxton1980 11mo agoWhat do you think the effect would be if, after a trial, everyone in the scam organization was executed?
- zwnow 11mo agoI am strongly against the death penalty, so I dont want to imagine a scenario in which this happened. Maybe there should be regulations in place making it so that only registered groups can start donation campaigns. Its a legislative failure. So many crimes are legislative failures...
- enneff 11mo agoI think the existing penalties would be deterrent enough. The problem is the criminals know they’ll probably get away with it.
- kakacik 11mo agoThat's probably too harsh, unless it can be proved without doubt that exactly and only due to this X (many) children died and would (with high probability) live otherwise. Thats China level of dealing with similar situations, plus probably harvesting organs for additional profit afterwards and sending bullet receipt to the family. There are many existing punishments - go after all their wealth, family and connected business, trusts etc. Simply ban them from western financial world. Publicly shame them and make their name a curse to spit on. Properly harsh jail and making sure all inmates know who arrived, I wouldn't expect kinder treatment than pedophiles get. And so on.
- trollbridge 10mo agoHow about if they were deliberately given cancer via some means and then legally barred from receiving any treatment for it? Since that’s what they did to their victims.
- vladms 11mo agoMaybe for this case Batman would be a better solution. Hell would not prevent the damage being done on the short term.
- toolslive 11mo agothere's also "remand" or detention before trial. One example where this is common is when there's a flight risk, or a risk the subject will influence the investigation.
- peanutz454 11mo agoThis is part of the reason that people do not donate.
- teekert 11mo agoAt least not when some rando stops you on the street.
- zwnow 11mo agoI always donate to the random homeless people stopping me on the street. Doesn't really matter to me what they do with it, whatever keeps them warm.
- ktallett 11mo agoAs a former homeless person, good on you. I will say, don't feel pressured to, a chat or a nice comment actually means as much, it reminded me I was human.
- zwnow 11mo agoOh its usually accompanied with a chat, here in Germany often times they just need some money to stay the night somewhere. However some just tell you whatever story to get their next high. Whatever floats their boat, to me its just sad that such a rich country doesn't help them while actively making being homeless harder for them. It's almost christmas and really cold out there, I know there are so many people freezing to death. What good does my money do when I invest it into some imaginary assets or kept it on my bank forever...
- ktallett 11mo agoAh good on you! You seem like a lovely person. Some absolutely do tell you a story to get a fix, and it is tricky. I visit Berlin often for work, and the sheer number of homeless people I have met and chatted to who seem to have become homeless due to a lack of mental health support is extremely sad. I suspect it will only get worse. I was lucky to be homeless in London respectfully weather wise, I can't imagine being homeless in Berlin as it is so cold. This isn't for you as you do plenty but incase others read this, but if you happen to ever see a thick coat in a charity shop, second hand store, or thrift store (whatever you call it) and it is quite cheap, do buy it as there are many charities that take them to give to homeless people.
- ktallett 11mo agoIt is disgusting that those with health issues are scammed. I do think these instances require extra time on sentences. As someone who was a regular at a cancer hospital in my life, there is nothing harder than seeing a child and a parent who are clearly going through so much at a hospital at 8am. You realise all that they have gone through the whole time, and how much their life has changed, possibly permanently. It is hard for an adult, of course it is, but children have done nothing for this to happen.
- Animats 11mo ago"The campaigns with the biggest apparent international reach were under the name of an organisation called Chance Letikva (Chance for Hope, in English) - registered in Israel and the US." Chance Letikva is registered with the US IRS as a charity. They've filed a Form 990. Location is Brooklyn, NY. [1] Address is listed. It's a small house. It's also incorporated as CHANCE LETIKVA, INC. in New York State. Address matches. Names of officers not given. There's one name in the IRS filing, listed as the president. Web site "https://chanceletikva.org https://chanceletikva.org" has been "suspended". Domain is still registered, via Namecheap. Some on the ground digging and subpoenas should reveal who's behind this. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/852049371 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/852...
- pksebben 11mo agois it normal for these places to have 0 liabilities? That alone seems like it ought to raise a flag - if you're not spending the money... Edit: Clicked through some of the other entries in there and yeah, usually liabilities are relatively close to incomes. How the system didn't catch this is beyond me.
- jdranczewski 11mo agoThe article says they visited both the US and Israel registration addresses and didn't find the organisation's offices. I was impressed by the amount of "on the ground digging" by the journalists here!
- jjcob 11mo agoPretty impressive work. I always wondered what all those correspondents do that news organisations employ all over the world. I guess that's one of those things.
- Sharlin 10mo agoI’m… not sure what’s there to wonder, really. They do the exact same thing as reporters back home: journalism. Meaning write articles and do investigative work required for writing articles, whether going to press conferences, finding people to interview, or something like this, called investigative journalism. A news piece in a foreign affairs section is likely to have been written by a correspondent because that’s what their job and specialty is. If it’s an op-ed or a commentary or analysis piece, even more so. It’s not like you can do good journalism without boots on the ground, no matter how connected the world is these days.
- Shuddown 11mo agoThis has to be one of the most vile scams I've ever seen. Hopefully with awareness will come justice.
- whatever1 11mo agoI am not religious. But if there is hell…
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 11mo agoThere is not in the religion of the alleged key player in the scam.
- VagabundoP 11mo agoOne of the others might make an exception to allow them in theirs.
- hrisen 11mo agoIn a lawless world, I'd like to show them hell!
- DobarDabar 10mo ago[dead]
- stef25 11mo agoSurely they'll be using AI to make these videos in the not too distant future.
- timthelion 11mo agoThis is already happening alot with gaza. On Mastodon wehad manyduplicate accounts with very similar AI videos asking for money...
- mikerbrt2000 11mo agoGreat journalism. I hope the authorities bring this person to justice and arrest them for fraud. I saw this ad a few months ago on YouTube and flagged it as a scam when I couldn’t find much information about the company. Never donate money through random sites. If you use platforms like https://www.gofundme.com/ https://www.gofundme.com/, at least you have the option to file a complaint if you find something suspicious.
- Nextgrid 11mo ago> I hope the authorities bring this person to justice and arrest them for fraud. They haven’t scammed nor inconvenienced a rich, well-connected person, so unlikely anything will happen. Remember that online fraud is effectively legal (10% of Meta’s revenue is from scam ads by their own estimates) as long as you only target the poor. These scam campaigns have been going for years with people operating in the field across many countries - if there was an incentive to stop this it would’ve been done already, but since everyone’s making money why bother? > file a complaint if you find something suspicious Which will be piped to /dev/null, just like reporting scams on social media.
- intended 10mo agoTangentially related - If you aren’t aware, there are out of court settlement bodies which exist as part of the DSA. If you have content which is removed, or a moderation decision you wish to dispute, you can go to one of these bodies to get it reviewed. It cannot go to dev/null. This doesn’t address whether flagging scams resulted in action. The bigger picture is the mismatched incentives for tech. Platforms are not quite incentivized to care about responding to user complaints, and do not give out information that lets us know what is happening independently. To get to the point that complaints are actioned, those incentives need to be realigned. The ODS pathway, if used more frequently, increases that revenue and market pressure. The ODS system is new, and I expect it will have tons of issues to discover. I wouldn’t be surprised it it is already weaponized. On the flip side, platforms haven’t been tested or queried in this manner before.
- spiderfarmer 11mo ago
- throwaw12 11mo agoI have reported these ads to YouTube multiple times, because I tracked down their scam websites, but YouTube didn't delete them anyway. Common pattern they had was: - similar or same domains - same messaging on their website YouTube could have taken action, but it choose not to
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 11mo agoGoogle, the worlds biggest and best coconspiritor.
- actionfromafar 11mo agoThat's so Meta.
- throwaw12 11mo agoThey also had a pattern of loudly crying kids in the beginning of the video, I thought they were faking, after a month they changed the style of start.
- Andrew_nenakhov 11mo agoThere was a period when I was constantly showered with these ads whenever I visited YouTube. It quickly became clear that it was some kind of scam, but YouTube didn't do anything about it for years.
- zaphirplane 11mo agoDoes clicking on the ad cost the spammer a lot of money
- LadyCailin 11mo agoYes, which is one of two reasons why I use a blocker called adnauseum. It an adv locker that “clicks” on every single ad it sees, as well as hides it from my view. This makes my ad profile useless, and also costs them money.
- anArbitraryOne 11mo ago"They were always looking for beautiful children with white skin." But most of the children in the video appear to be non-white. So they're not even good at anti-affirmative-action?
- throwfaraway135 10mo agoOr it's just BBC doing BBC stuff.
- graemep 10mo agoPossibly it means white by the standards of the culture and language the statement was made in.
- micromacrofoot 10mo agoit's likely referring to colorism within the country, generally lighter is viewed as favorable
- tchalla 11mo agoThe root cause of the problem is that parents and children need to raise funds for cancer treatment in the first place.
- dev0p 11mo agoIt's likely caused by the very same thing that causes human beings to knowingly and willingly steal money from children that need that money to live.
- HlessClaudesman 11mo agoSome people seem to exist in a bubble where they believe that nothing bad will ever happen to them or their loved ones, so paying to improve society has no benefit to themselves.
- Hendrikto 11mo agoEven if you never personally needed health insurance (which is unrealistic), you’d still benefit from a better, safer, less cut throat society. Same with education. I am more than happy to pay taxes for an education system, even if I do not personally have children.
- catlikesshrimp 11mo agoThere are both private and public health care systems. Private care is a complicated scam, the small print is tens of times the contract. Public health systems vary with country. Private advocates say public sucks, until it is their turn to be scammed.
- mothballed 11mo agoWhat's 'paid' to the median child in education is a pittance compared to what the payers suck back out of them in old age during social security. Public education is largely a scam to put 'original sin' of debt of children to society so when they grow up there is some plausible explanation that "we're a society" and they must feed into the pyramid scheme.
- throwfaraway135 11mo agoA simple way to solve this would be to have some kind of gov certification process. Which could also include a QR code going to a gov website with details why this org was given the certification. This isn't perfect but would certainly lower such incidents.
- Neil44 11mo agoThe world seems to be full of virtuous sounding organisations who are actually evil.
- random9749832 11mo ago[flagged]
- cindyllm 11mo ago[dead]
- A_D_E_P_T 11mo agolol, sure seems that way. No special consideration for them, in any case.
- throwaway198846 11mo agoWhat does one man living in Canada have to do with how much people in Israel love children? There have been many frauds of cancer in children. Here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-14/sa-couple-alleged-fake-cancer-claims/104724562 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-14/sa-couple-alleged-fak... is one, an Australian couple asking donations for a fake cancer. Is it reasonable to believe Australia doesn't like children because of it? No in fact it so ridiculous that even asking it is frankly stupid.
- orwin 11mo agoIt was a quip about Israel military explicitly killing children. Not very tasteful, but it clearly wasn't about this particular scam. By the way, indiscriminately bombing children seems to be more acceptable than opening fire on them for some reason, so maybe Israel military should stick to its guns.
- netsharc 11mo agoIf the scammer were Muslim, many people would have no issue ascribing blame to swathes of people with the same religion, calling the religion itself cancer. Huh, maybe people can ask for donations to be cured of that "cancer"...
- flanked-evergl 10mo ago[flagged]
- isolli 11mo agoFraud in cancer research is sadly prevalent. France cancer fraud trial begins (1999) [0] (the head of the charity was found guilty, imprisoned, and fined) [0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/352075.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/352075.stm
- ekianjo 11mo agoI would extend it to fraud in charities in general. Trusting a third party (unknown to you) to handle your money responsibly is not a smart move.
- otikik 11mo agoOf all the people that you can scam, why go for children with cancer. I guess you think they are an easy target because they are desperate? Pure sociopath mentality. Crab mindset.
- otikik 11mo agoIn case any sociopath is reading this: just go for old rich people. They are also desperate because they are alone, seeing their relevancy wane, and their deaths are closer every day. A single successful scam will represent a bigger return of your invested time and effort than, compared 10 successfully scammed children with cancer. And they might not even make a fuss if you steal some money from them, it will make them look weak and it will only represent a small percentage of their wealth. And you are less likely to be killed by a mob, as a bonus.
- uxx 11mo agoAgain some Israeli connection in a scam, search google and browse "fintelegram" you will see the biggest and baddest financial crime actors are all based in israel.
- bjord 11mo agoall of the content on your site is clearly LLM-generated
- throwaway198846 11mo agoThe vast majority of fraud have noting to do with Israel wage theft is enormous everywhere and have nothing to do with Israel, the biggest fraudsters in history (mostly scams on USA investors like Theranos and 2008 crisis) according to quick Google have nothing to do with Israel. The obvious attempts to mafacture a negative image couldn't be more obvious.
- uxx 11mo ago[flagged]
- throwaway198846 11mo ago
- Ozzie_osman 11mo agoIt's worth noting that if the suspect is in Israel, and he nerds to be tried in the US it might be an uphill battle trying to get him extradited. https://jacobin.com/2023/02/israel-law-of-return-extradition-tinder-swindler https://jacobin.com/2023/02/israel-law-of-return-extradition...
- lloydatkinson 11mo agoIt’s so predictable by this point
- throwaway198846 11mo agoDo you believe all countries should automatically extradiate every person any other country demands? Or that there should be a limit on such process?
- jack_tripper 10mo agoNo, but the pattern of criminals of Jewish background fleeing to Israel for protection after commiting a crime, is too often to ignore. Same thing happened in my post communist country and the neighboring country too. Perp stole tens of millons through a banking scam in the 90s, then fled to Israel because he was Jewish and claimed persecution. At which point should the pattern be acknowledged?
- throwaway198846 10mo agoAnd did you ask Israel for extradition? What his name was? And is this pattern actually unique to Israel or would you find other examples of people escaping to where the law can't reach them? If Israel wanted to convict a dual citizen who fled to your country, what is the required process?
- jack_tripper 10mo agoNo, the leaders of my country didn't try any of that. You were the first person to think about those things. I'll pass on your suggestions and hopefully everything gets resolved.
- chinathrow 11mo ago> One year later, Khalil died. These monsters.
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo agoI love the photo the guy sent, of himself sitting in a first-class airplane seat. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/b676/live/3589b330-d51d-11f0-9fb5-5f3a3703a365.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/b676/live/3589b...
- gampleman 11mo agoReally makes me think that the justice system should have a wide margin for discretionary sentencing. I get that in some sense fraud is fraud, but there is one thing preying on people's greed, and another preying on compassion, charity and vulnerable children in desperate need. Scams based on greed (or other vices) are in some sense limited crimes, since their success punishes what is low, but scams based on what is best in us are much wider in their social impact, since they also disincentivize what is most noble.
- cluckindan 11mo agoThen again, maybe we should keep ethics and morals away from law and sentencing, and concentrate on harm and intent. Laws can be based on ethics, but moral judgments really should not be involved in their application. Unless you want to live in a theocracy, of course.
- wanderingmind 11mo agoThe jury pronounces the sentence. What do you think sways the jurors - legalese complexity or straight up morality?
- _heimdall 10mo agoJurors decide the verdict, the judge determines the sentence.
- birktj 11mo agoThe argument is that scams based on exploiting goodness causes a lot more harm compared to the ones based on exploiting greed. Because it trains people that doing good deeds is not worth it (they might be scammed.) And even if the rate of such scams are low, just reading about them makes people afraid of potential consequences of doing good deeds. So I absolutely agree that such scams should have very harsh punishments, because they do not only have immediate consequences, but they degrade trust in our society.
- cheschire 11mo ago
- WesolyKubeczek 11mo agoI remember there was a flood of similar campaigns on Facebook a couple years ago. Multiple pages, some posts sponsored, some gaming the algorithm, very similar messaging. All about children suffering from cancer. All leading to scammy-looking domain names, some using IDNs. I had been wondering where the catch was, then got tired and just started reporting and blocking them until they stopped.
- eleveriven 11mo agoIf BBC journalists can donate $5 and see the counter move, how are these campaigns not triggering internal red flags?
- trhway 11mo agoThese campaings? I've paid some minimal cursory attention to 2 pretty randomly chosen charities - once i donated an old car, and another time i thought may be to subscribe to do math tutoring to children, the tutors were unpaid volunteers, and i just looked into what financial info was available for that non-profit ... well after those 2 times i've never even thought about any dealing with any non-profit, etc. and the stories in the news like when a famous radio talk show host would fund raise huge money to be later paid from his non-profit to his vacation ranch business, all in the open daylight, don't surprise me at all or all those stories of Trump's charities.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- myth_drannon 10mo ago[flagged]
- Loughla 10mo agoI feel like I'm missing the "Jew hate fest." Genuinely I don't see it here, except maybe one comment saying that Israel does not extradite criminals. . . Which is pretty neutral in tone to be honest. Where are you seeing the hate?
- deaux 10mo agoThere is 1 (one) comment that is definitely very dodgy [0]. Saying 1 comment out of 250+ is a "fest" however, is of course the tried and true tactic of "anything remotely negative of anything connected to the country or any of its citizens must be racist". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46286734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46286734
- mihalycsaba 10mo agoOk, I'll start. Is it antisemitic to question why so many scammers are fleeing to Israel?
- huflungdung 10mo ago[dead]
- philipallstar 10mo agoTo be clear: the children are not scammed. They're (unwitting) paid photo props. The people giving are scammed out of millions.
- marcusb 10mo agoI think the kid in the article who got $27k raised in his name for cancer treatment, received $0 in cancer treatment from those funds, and subsequently died of cancer definitely got scammed.
- philipallstar 10mo agoIf I come up to you and show you a photo of an elephant and keep the $100 you gave me to help it, did you get scammed, or did the elephant?
- marcusb 10mo agoFalse equivalence. In your straw man, the elephant isn't misled into believing that by posing for a photo it could be "helped," nor is it possible to communicate such an idea to an elephant. In the story, money was raised for the boy's cancer treatment, and that money was improperly withheld, denying him the treatment those funds could have provided. He was harmed by that, and by being misled into thinking he could get treatment by appearing in the video, he was scammed. Lying to the family and stating the funds weren't raised is also scamming them. But, of course, you know that, but you would rather dig and (try to) play semantic games than admit you are wrong. Do better.
- juanparati 10mo agoThis is nothing new, greedy bast*rds taking advantage of desperate people. In this book an old NGO worker explain very well how it work the business: https://books.google.dk/books/about/Blanco_bueno_busca_negro_pobre.html https://books.google.dk/books/about/Blanco_bueno_busca_negro...
- callamdelaney 10mo agoI recall seeing these ads, I thought the whole thing was fake to be honest - which it really felt it was due to the obvious staging and scripting.
- trollbridge 10mo agoI thought they were AI due to the heavy use of filters / AI enhancement.
- ck2 10mo agoI mean Musk almost singlehandedly has killed hundreds of thousands of kids worldwide in 2025 alone by destroying USAID medicine and basic nutrition distribution, while it literally rots in warehouses now If we are going to have cancer stories and gun violence stories daily in the news, shouldn't the kids dying be a daily coverage? Credit to BBC who every few weeks does show the kids dying in the hospital but US news does not mention it anymore since the summer Still dying. More in 2026. Even more in 2027. Even more in 2028. Even if USAID is restored in 2029 it will take awhile to rebuild and all those dead kids aren't coming back ever. Oh and they didn't just quietly die. They suffered for weeks, months and died Musk did that. But yeah keep using X and buying his cars
- Boogie_Man 10mo ago""...Well- What does he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!" "To be shot" murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale, twisted smile." "Bravo!" Cried Ivan delighted.
- DobarDabar 10mo ago[dead]
- boringg 10mo agoHonestly sometimte people are the absolute worst - I feel like there no bottom to depravity.
- broretore 10mo agoWow, what a blast from the past -- I went to high school with a guy named Erez Hadari.
- grugagag 10mo agoThere’s a photo of this person in the article, you can verify if it’s the same person you know
- nafizh 10mo agoThe BBC has increasingly been anti-semitic. First, the baseless allegations of starving and murdering children in Gaza and now this. Troubling times.
- whatamidoingyo 10mo agoHow is the article anti-semitic?
- juliusceasar 10mo agoSo, exposing jew criminals is anti-semitic?
- jessepasley 10mo agoAlways has been ;)
- crazychicken25 10mo agoits not anti-sematic ,just don't think all jews are like this Bec. of a few bad people ,there are bad people in all countries and nations you don't make all the people in those countries bad Bec. of the individuals
- ozzymuppet 10mo agoWhat kind of monsters would do this... so angry!
- ozzymuppet 10mo agoWhat kind of monsters would do this?! Pure evil, makes me so angry!
- juliusceasar 10mo agoHe will soon move to Israel and escape his punishment.
- Pesthuf 10mo agoMany such cases
- hearsathought 10mo agoIsn't that just for "jewish" pedos and rapists?
- fahhem 10mo agoEveryone associated with this seems to be Jewish. Israel is a haven for criminals of all types, we just care extra about any haven for pedos and rapists, but white collar criminals are terrible, too
- almosthere 10mo ago[flagged]
- rkozik1989 10mo agoIf you actually cared so much about victims of fraud you wouldn't be mad about a fraudster getting caught. You'd care about all the victims, not just the ones who were victimized by Somalis.
- almosthere 10mo ago[flagged]
- jessepasley 10mo ago"Why do you care about genocide in Gaza when you don't care anything about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang?" This tactic is just so tiresome and people aren't falling for it.
- almosthere 10mo agoI didn't say anything about genocide in Gaza or the Uyghurs in Xinjiang... What are you on? When people are unable to engage with an argument this is what they do.
- LocalH 10mo agoAnd I'm flagging your comment because HN submissions stand separately, and HN isn't a hive mind.
- krebsonsecurity 10mo agoSometimes just a little bit DNS research can yield a lot of useful results. Looking at the passive DNS records for the domain chanceletikva.org shows it references the email address davidm@yeahdim.co.il.That email address is tied to multiple website registrations for a person by the name of David Margaliot, and also Shoshana Margaliot. A search on this name in Domaintools finds the name David Margaliot tied to at least 25 domains, including ezri.org.il, which is a very odd site that features a huge image of a young child who is apparently in the hospital holding a gift wrapped box with a teddy bear. The site asks for donations but has a strange mission statement: Ezri Association promotes life-saving innovation through a surveillance drone project for emergency response teams, the establishment of an international medical knowledge database, along with other technological initiatives". I'll probably continue the rest of this in a follow-up story.
- broretore 10mo agoPlease do
- ballpug 10mo ago[dead]
- neom 10mo agoBBC has some details, I was disheartened as a Canadian to learn someone living in Canada is behind it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj3lTCiv6I0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj3lTCiv6I0
- sharts 10mo agoNot a great look for Israel
- everdev 10mo agoWhy do we keep allowing greedsters to eat our culture alive?
- silexia 10mo agoScammers should get the death penalty.