A 42-year-old British woman has been held for ‘faking’ ovarian cancer to raise funds worth 71,754.54 USD . The money was given by generous well-wishers who believed that she was actually sick, while in reality she wanted to use the money for her lavish lifestyle.
The woman has been sent to jail with term of two years and nine months, the DailyMail reported. The woman has been identified as Elkabbas and had claimed to the donors that she needed funds to pat for her cancer treatment and set up a charitable GoFundMe website before transferring donations into her own bank account.
However, she was never diagnosed with cancer and instead used the money to fund her gambling addiction, clear her mounting debts and spend it on her ‘expensive lifestyle’. This included a £3,592 luxury box to watch a single Tottenham Hotspur match.
Elkabbas used a convincing GoFundMe page to con kind-hearted people who believed her story as she shared her picture of lying on a hospital bed.
She was recently photographed outside Canterbury Crown Court in Kent after she was being taken away for immediate imprisonment. Elkabbas had been convicted at a trial at the same court in November last year.
The court found her guilty of a fraud where she falsely claimed to have ovarian cancer to receive money for treatment between February and August 2018. She wasalso found guilty of possession of criminal property in relation to the charitable donations which were subsequently transferred into her bank account.
“All the while you were gambling, enjoying shopping trips and luxuries in Italy and Spain at their expense," the judge told her as he called her cunning and manipulative.
“It has a wider impact on the community. There are many real cases of those who desperately need crowdfunding or charitable donations for themselves or for their relatives at times of acute anguish," the judge was quoted as saying.
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