Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment, BBC finds
8 hours ago Share Save Simi Jolaoso , Jack Goodman and Sarah Buckley , BBC Eye Investigations Share Save
Chance Letikva
Warning: Disturbing content
A little boy faces the camera. He is pale and has no hair. "I am seven years old and I have cancer," he says. "Please save my life and help me." Khalil - who is pictured above in a still from the film - didn't want to record this, says his mother Aljin. She had been asked to shave his head, and then a film crew hooked him up to a fake drip, and asked his family to pretend it was his birthday. They had given him a script to learn and recite in English. And he didn't like it, says Aljin, when chopped onions were placed next to him, and menthol put under his eyes, to make him cry. Aljin agreed to it because, although the set-up was fake, Khalil really did have cancer. She was told this video would help crowdfund money for better treatment. And it did raise funds - $27,000 (£20,204), according to a campaign we found in Khalil's name. But Aljin was told the campaign had failed, and says she received none of this money - just a $700 (£524) filming fee on the day. One year later, Khalil died. Across the world, desperate parents of sick or dying children are being exploited by online scam campaigns, the BBC World Service has discovered. The public have given money to the campaigns, which claim to be fundraising for life-saving treatment. We have identified 15 families who say they got little to nothing of the funds raised and often had no idea the campaigns had even been published, despite undergoing harrowing filming. Nine families we spoke to - whose campaigns appear to be products of the same scam network - say they never received anything at all of the $4m (£2.9m) apparently raised in their names. A whistleblower from this network told us they had looked for "beautiful children" who "had to be three to nine years old… without hair". We have identified a key player in the scam as an Israeli man living in Canada called Erez Hadari.
Watch how three children, including Ana from Colombia, appeared in campaign videos
Our investigation began in October 2023, when a distressing YouTube advert caught our attention. "I don't want to die," a girl called Alexandra from Ghana sobbed. "My treatments cost a lot." A crowdfunding campaign for her appeared to have raised nearly $700,000 (£523,797). We saw more videos of sick children from around the world on YouTube, all strikingly similar - slickly produced, and seemingly having raised huge amounts of money. They all conveyed a sense of urgency, using emotive language. We decided to investigate further. 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. Identifying the children featured was difficult. We used geolocation, social media and facial recognition software to find their families, based as far apart as Colombia and the Philippines.
Chance Letikva A Chance Letikva campaign for Ana in Colombia - falsely claiming she had two months to live
While it was difficult to know for sure if the campaign websites' cash totals were genuine, we donated small amounts to two of them and saw the totals increase by those amounts. We also spoke to someone who says she gave $180 (£135) to Alexandra's campaign and was then inundated with requests for more, all written as if sent by Alexandra and her father. In the Philippines, Aljin Tabasa told us her son Khalil had fallen ill just after his seventh birthday. "When we found out it was cancer it felt like my whole world shattered," she says. Aljin says treatment at their local hospital in the city of Cebu was slow, and she had messaged everyone she could think of for help. One person put her in touch with a local businessman called Rhoie Yncierto - who asked for a video of Khalil which, looking back, Aljin realises was essentially an audition. Another man then arrived from Canada in December 2022, introducing himself as "Erez". He paid her the filming fee up front, she says, promising a further $1,500 (£1,122) a month if the film generated lots of donations. Erez directed Khalil's film at a local hospital, asking for retake after retake - the shoot taking 12 hours, Aljin says.
Months later, the family say they had still not heard how the video had performed. Aljin messaged Erez, who told her the video "wasn't successful". "So as I understood it, the video just didn't make any money," she says. But we told her the campaign had apparently collected $27,000 (£20,204) as of November 2024, and was still online. "If I had known the money we had raised, I can't help but think that maybe Khalil would still be here," Aljin says. "I don't understand how they could do this to us." When asked about his role in the filming, Rhoie Yncierto denied telling families to shave their children's heads for filming and said he had received no payment for recruiting families. He said he had "no control" over what happened with the funds and had no contact with the families after the day of filming. When we told him they had not received any of the campaigns' donations he said he was "puzzled" and was "very sorry for the families". Nobody named Erez appears on registration documents for Chance Letikva. But two of its campaigns we investigated had also been promoted by another organisation called Walls of Hope, registered in Israel and Canada. Documents list the director in Canada as Erez Hadari. Photos of him online show him at Jewish religious events in the Philippines, New York and Miami. We showed Aljin, and she said it was the same person she had met.
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