Iowa woman scammed almost $40,000 in donations with fake cancer diagnosis

A 19-year-old Iowa woman has been arrested and charged with theft by deception after scamming almost $40,000 from various donors and charities with a fake cancer diagnosis, reported Crime Online.

"The Eldridge Police Department said Madison Russo claimed to have acute lymphoblastic leukemia, stage 2 pancreatic cancer, and a football-sized tumor wrapped around her spine as she solicited more than $37,000 from 439 donors, according to KWQC," reported K.C. Wildmoon. "Police said they were alerted to the false claims by witnesses with medical experience who noted medical discrepancies in pictures Russo posted to her social media sites. An arrest affidavit said that some of the photographs were taken from social media pages of actual cancer patients and shared as her own."

Police then subpoenaed Russo's medical records, which revealed she was never diagnosed with cancer.

Prior to the scam being exposed, her GoFundMe stated that "On February 10th, 2022 Maddie Russo found out she has Pancreatic Cancer and has been going to battle ever since to win this war."

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Per KWQC, she had also "openly talked about her cancer journey as a guest speaker at St. Ambrose University, The National Pancreatic Foundation in Chicago, and a podcast for Project Purple online. She also received money from a local group, the Ohl Strong Foundation, which said in a statement they are "saddened to hear that one of our recipients in 2022 has been charged with fraudulently accepting assistance from our fund."

GoFundMe has vowed full refunds for all victims of the scam.

Fake cancer scams have been a frequent problem for charitable and government entities. In 2017, Vedoutie Hoobraj of Orlando was charged with federal wire fraud after raising over $50,000 from people in Westchester County, New York towns for supposed treatment at Sloan-Kettering Medical Center. And in 2018, a Catholic priest in Mississippi, Rev. Lenin Vargas-Gutierrez, was accused of pretending to have cancer to bilk $33,000 out of parishioners.