Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment, BBC finds

Warning: Disturbing content

A little boy faces the camera. He is pale and has no hair. I am seven years old and have cancer, he says. Please save my life and help me. Khalil, who is featured in a still from the film, doesn't want to film this,

says his mother Aljin. She was asked to shave his head, but then a film crew hooked him up to a fake drip and begged his family to pretend it was his birthday. He had been given a script to learn and recite in English. When chopped onions were delivered next to him and menthol put under his eyes, he didn't like it, according to Aljin. Aljin accepted it because, although the entire scheme was fake, Khalil did have cancer. This video, she was told, would help crowdfund funds for better care. According to a petition we found in Khalil's name, it did raise funds - $27,000 (£20,204). However, Aljin was told the campaign had failed, and she claims she was paid none of this money - just a $700 (£524) filming fee on the day. One year later, Khalil died. The BBC World Service has discovered that internet scam campaigns are targeting struggling parents of sick or dying children around the world. The public has contributed to the campaigns, which claim to be raising money for life-saving programs. Despite undergoing gruesome filming, we have 15 families who claim they received little to none of the funds raised and that, in some cases, they had no idea the campaigns had been revealed. Nine families we talked to, many of whom appear to be part of the same fraud network, claim no one paid them any money at all of the $4 million (£2). 9m) apparently raised in their names. We had been looking for

beautiful childrenwhohad to be three to nine years old without hair," a network whistleblower told us. Erez Hadari, an Israeli man living in Canada, has been identified as a key player in the fraud.

In October 2023, our probe began when a traumatic YouTube advertisement grabbed our attention. Alexandra, a Ghanai girl, sobbed, I don't want to die.My treatments cost a lot. "A crowdfunding effort for her seemed to have raised nearly $700,000 (£523,797). On YouTube, we saw more videos of sick children from around the world, all looking remarkably similar, with some of them being raised large sums of money. They all conveyed a sense of urgency by using emotive terms. We decided to investigate further. Chance Letikva (Chance for Hope, in English) - registered in Israel and the United States, with the most apparent international reach. Identifying the children featured was difficult. To locate their families, we used geolocation, social media, and facial recognition software, which were based in Colombia and the Philippines.

Although it was impossible to determine if the campaign websites' cash balances were real, we gave small amounts to two of them, and the totals increased by those numbers. We also talked to someone who said she contributed $180 (£135) to Alexandra's campaign and was then overwhelmed with demands for more, all written as if sent by Alexandra and her father. Aljin Tabasa of the Philippines told us that Khalil's son Khalils had died shortly after his seventh birthday.

When we learned it was cancer, it felt like my entire world had been shaken,

she says. Aljin says that the hospitalization in Cebu's city of Cebu was painful, and she had told everyone she could think of for assistance. One individual put her in touch with Rhoie Yncierto, a local businessman who wanted a video of Khalil, which Aljin admits was essentially an audition. In December 2022, another man from Canada appeared as Erez and introduced himself as "erez. He paid her the filming fee up front, but she says if the film received a lot of donations, she would expect another $1,500 (£1,122) a month. According to Aljin, Erez directed Khalil's film at a local hospital, demanding retake after retaking after a retry.

The family claims that months after the video had been broadcasting, they had no idea how it had turned out. Aljin called Erez, who told her that the video wasn't successful.Well, as I understood it,

she says. However, we told her that the campaign had apparently raised $27,000 (£20,204) as of November 2024, and that it was still online.

I wish we had known the funds we'd raised, I can't help but imagine that Khalil would still be here,Aljin says.I'm not sure how they could do this to us.

When asked about his participation in the filming, Rhoie Yncierto denied telling families that their children's heads had been shaved for filming and said he had no compensation for recruiting families. After the day of filming, he said he had

no control

over what happened with the funds and had no way to contact with the families. When we told him they had not received any of the campaign's contributions, he was

puzzledand expresseddeep sorrow for the families. Chance Letikva's registration papers are missing for Erez. However, two of its campaigns were also sponsored by Walls of Hope, a separate group in Israel and Canada. Erez Hadari is listed in Canada's documents as the director. Photographs of him online depict him at Jewish religious services in the Philippines, New York, and Miami. We met Aljin, and she said it was the same person she had encountered.

We asked Mr Hadari about his participation in a campaign in the Philippines. He did not respond. We visited two more families whose campaigns were either planned or linked to Mr Hadari, one in a remote indigenous group in Colombia, and another in Ukraine. Local fixers had contacted Khalil to ask assistance, as in his case. The children were filmed and coerced to cry or fake tears for a small fee, but no further money was received. Sergio Care, a north-west Colombian, says he initially refused this assistance in Sucre, north-east Colombia. Isabel, he says, had been approached by someone named Isabel, who had financial assistance after his eight-year-old daughter, Ana, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Isabel, on the hospital treating Ana, was looking for him, according to him, as well as a man who said he worked for an international NGO. Sergio's description matched that of Erez Hadari - he then recognized him in a snapshot we shared of him. "He gave me hope. I didn't have any money for the future.

The family's rights were not satisfied with the filming. Isabel kept calling, Sergio says, demanding more photos of Ana in hospital. Isabel began contacting Ana herself after Sergio didn't respond, as we've learned. Ana told Isabel that she had no more photos to send. Isabel said, This is really bad Ana, very bad indeed.Ana, who has since recovered, sought to find out what happened to the money promised in January. Isabel told her in a voice note, that charity has vanished.Your video was never uploaded. Never. Nothing was done with it, you hear? "We could have seen the video had been posted, and by April 2024, the film had raised nearly $250,000 (£187,070).

We begged Isabel Hernandez to join us via video connection in October. She explained that a friend from Israel had introduced her to someone who was working for a charity aimed at helping children with cancer. She refused to reveal who she worked for. She was told that only one of the campaigns she aided with was announced, and that it had not been fruitful. We told Isabel that two campaigns had in fact been launched, one of which raised more than $700,000 (£523,797). I must apologise to [the families], she wrote.

I may not have known what was going on if I'd known what's going on,

says the author.

We learned that the individual who approached a sick child was actually working in the city where the campaign video was shot in Ukraine. At the Angelholm Clinic in Chernivtsi, Tetiana Khaliavka organized a shooting with five-year-old Viktoriia Viktoriia and her mother Olena Firsova are shown on a bed in a Facebook post related to Chance Letikva's campaign.

I see your efforts to save my daughter, and it really moves us all. According to the caption, it's a race against time to raise the amount of money needed for Viktoriia's therapies. Olena claims she never wrote or even said these words and had no idea the campaign had been published. It appears that it has raised more than €280,000 (£244,000). We were told Tetiana was in charge of marketing and communications at Angelholm.

The clinic has never participated in, nor sponsored, any fundraising campaigns undertaken by any department,

the clinic told the BBC recently. Tetiana Khaliavka's employment has been terminated, according to Angelholm.

Olena shared with us the deal she had been asked to sign. It claims that after the fundraising target was met, the family would earn $8,000 (£5,986). The target's amount, on the other hand, has been left blank. Chance Letikva had an address in New York. There is another - in Beit Shemesh, about an hour from Jerusalem, on the company's website. We've been to both countries but we found no evidence of it on the ground. Chance Letikva is one of many such companies, and it is one we found. Our producer, who was posing as a friend of a sick child, told our reporter that he worked with other similar companies. Each time, it's a new one, the man, who had referred to herself as Oleh, told her.

I hate to put it this way, but they do work like a conveyor belt.

About a dozen related firmsdemandedinformation,

he said, naming two of them, Saint Teresa and Little Angels, both registered in the United States. We found Erez Hadari's name when we checked their registration papers. It's unclear where the money earned for the children has gone. Olena rang Oleh, who seems to go by Alex Kohen online more than a year after Viktoriia's filming, to find out. Chance Letikva's someone called to inform the donors that they had been paid for advertising, she says. This is also what Mr Hadari told Aljin, Khalil's mother, when she confronted him over the phone.

There is cost of advertising. So the company lost money,

Mr Hadari told her, but she did not have any proof to back this up. Advertising should not add up to more than 20% of the total raised by campaigns, according to charity experts. We're told how those celebrities were chosen by someone who had been hired to recruit children for Chance Letikva campaigns. They had been invited to visit oncology clinics, but they denied it on condition of anonymity.

They were always looking for beautiful children with white skin. The child had to be aged three to nine years old. They had to know how to communicate effectively. They had to be without hair,they told us.They asked me for photographs to see if the child is right, and I'll send it to Erez. Mr Hadari would then take the photo to someone else in Israel, whose name was never revealed,

the whistleblower told us. We tried to reach Mr Hadari himself at two locations in Canada, but we couldn't locate him. He replied to one voice note we had sent him, asking about the funds he had reportedly crowdfunding by, saying the company

has never been operational" without identifying which one we had. He did not respond to a new voice note and letter laying out all our concerns and allegations.

Chance Letikva's campaign for two children who died - Khalil and a Mexican boy named Hector - don't appear to be asking money. Chance Letikva's US branch appears to be affiliated with Saint Raphael, a new company that has delivered more campaigns, two of which appear to have been shot in Angelholm clinic in Ukraine, as the clinic's distinctive wood panelling and staff uniforms can be seen. Olena, Viktoriia's mother, says her daughter has been diagnosed with another brain tumor. The results of our probe have contaminated her, she claims, and she is sickened.

When your child is. Hanging on the edge of life, and someone else is out there, profiting from it. Well, it's filthy. It's blood money.

The BBC contacted Tetiana Khaliavka and Alex Kohen, as well as Chance Letikva, Walls of Hope, Saint Raphael, Little Angels, and Saint Teresa, asking that they respond to the allegations made against them. None of them replied. According to the Israeli Corporations Authority, which regulates the country's non-profit companies, if it finds proof that founders are using entities as a cover for illicit conduct, registration inside Israel will be refused, and the founder could be barred from working in the sector. If in doubt, the Charity Commission, the UK regulator, advises those wishing to contribute to charities to check that those organizations are registered and that the appropriate fundraising regulator should be contacted if in doubt.