Original subtitles

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

Hello and welcome to Global Eye

from the BBC's headquarters here in London.

Over the next half-hour,

we will bring you an exclusive investigation.

I'm Simi Jolaoso, an investigative reporter with

the World Service's Eye Investigations team,

and for the last two years

I have been working on an extraordinary story.

In October 2023,

I clicked on a YouTube advert that took me

to a crowdfunding campaign for a little girl with cancer.

Something about it didn't feel right to me.

Now our investigation has revealed desperate parents

searching for help are being deceived by

a global network of scammers

exploiting children with cancer.

Here's our report.

I first discovered these fundraising campaigns

in October 2023

when an advert on YouTube pops up.

It was just so moving,

so I did feel like at least I wanted to know what had happened to her.

The video links to a fundraising campaign for

a little girl called Alexandra.

It appears to have raised more than $500,000.

Then I see another video of a child...

..and then more videos,

all linked to crowdfunding campaigns.

The children are from all over the world,

yet all the campaigns look the same.

Something about them just doesn't seem right to me.

Several organisations appear to be behind these campaigns.

They're all registered in Israel.

The most active one is called Chance Letikva...

..which in English means Chance For Hope.

It's also registered in the United States.

One of their campaigns is for a little boy called Hector.

The campaign says that he's five years old,

has cancer and is fighting for his life.

Hector's campaign appears to have raised nearly $1 million US.

I find a thread on social media that claims it might be a scam.

I use it to track down his family to Mexico.

LAUGHTER

Turns out Hector is real, does have cancer

and does need treatment.

Hector's family tell me they were approached by someone

to make this crowdfunding video for him...

..but they only received $2,000 on the day of filming -

not enough to pay for the bone marrow transplant

he desperately needed.

I arranged to meet him,

but in December 2024,

his mother tells me that Hector has died.

Yet, after his death,

his campaign is still up

and accepting donations.

Almost $1 million has been raised,

but Hector's family were only given $2,000.

Where's the rest of the money?

I want to know whether other families and donors

are also being exploited.

While reviewing online campaigns,

I came across several featuring a girl named Victoria.

They appear to be run by the same organisation as Hector's -

Chance For Hope,

which is the English translation of Chance Letikva.

Victoria's campaign is also on a website

for another one called Walls Of Hope.

There are multiple Facebook pages promoting her campaign,

and on one of them there's a photo of her with a woman.

After further research, we confirmed

that the woman is Victoria's mother, Olena.

Olena and her husband Ihor call their daughter Vikusa.

She's only five years old.

She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2021.

Since she was 18 months old,

Victoria has been in and out of hospital.

A few months after her first operation, the tumour spread.

Her family needed help.

THEY LAUGH

The woman told Olena her name was Tetiana.

She said she worked for what she referred to as sponsors abroad

who could raise money for Victoria's treatment.

All they needed to do was record a video.

In May 2024, Tetiana organised the filming.

The filming took place in a private clinic in Chernivtsi.

A cameraman called Oleh was directing the shoot.

During the video shoot,

Olena realised Oleh and Tetiana were working

under very specific instructions from someone on the phone.

Did he ever tell you

where these sponsors were, or where they were from?

What do you think he was discussing with these sponsors?

By searching their phone numbers

and using facial recognition software,

we find photos of who we believe are Tetiana and Oleh.

Even what looks like one of them together.

We discover Oleh also goes by the name Alex Kohen.

Can you let me know if you recognise

any of these people on the screen.

So that's Tetiana... Mm-hm.

..in both of these photos.

And that's Oleh... Mm-hm.

..who took the photos and videos of you and Victoria.

They never contacted Olena with an update on the campaign.

She only found out about it through us.

There were also Facebook pages

for Victoria's campaign in several languages.

Victoria's campaign appears to have raised more than 280,000 euros,

which is more than $300,000.

The donation options span from 40 to 5,000 euros,

all specifically stating it's for Victoria.

But Olena says they were only given $1,500 in cash

on the day of filming.

The contract is from Chance Letikva.

It says the family would get an additional $8,000

once the fundraising goal was met...

..but the field for the goal is empty.

When back at work, Olena decides to confront Oleh.

While we wait for Oleh to get back in touch with Olena,

we take a closer look at the contract between her

and Chance Letikva.

The address for Chance Letikva on Olena's contract

was in Brooklyn, New York.

We sent someone to check it out...

..but there was no sign of them,

just a residential building.

When you scroll down on their website,

there's an address in Israel.

So I flew to Israel to investigate further.

The address on Chance Letikva's website is

in a city called Beit Shemesh,

about an hour away from Jerusalem.

I'm working with a local journalist.

She's asked to remain anonymous.

Yeah, it looks like just a residential building.

I don't see any signs that say Chance Letikva.

It is very odd that this international charity,

doing campaigns all over the world,

like, we've literally come all the way and there's nothing.

I received an update about Olena from our Ukrainian producer.

According to charity experts I've consulted,

advertising should not amount to more than 20% of the total raised

in a campaign.

Walls Of Hope is another organisation

that featured Victoria's campaign on their website.

When we looked into this organisation,

this name, Erez Hadari,

was on a database as the director in Canada.

When we run facial recognition on Erez,

we find photos of him at religious community events

in the Philippines, New York and Miami.

And one video, from December 2022, is of him speaking at

a Hanukkah celebration in Cebu, Philippines.

Because a little bit of light pushes a lot of darkness away,

and that's the message of Hanukkah.

We found a Chance Letikva campaign filmed in Cebu

around the time Erez was there.

..and help me.

It's for a boy called Kahlil,

who sadly died from leukaemia in 2023.

We asked his mother, Aljin, to identify who directed

her son's campaign video.

She confirmed it was Erez Hadari.

Is this the person?

She has more photos of him.

Is this one of him in first class?

Aljin says Erez subjected the family to 12 hours of filming.

They agreed because they desperately needed money for Khalil's treatment.

They put something spicy under his eyes to make him cry?

Mm-hm.

In the year following Khalil's campaign release,

it appeared to have raised more than $27,000.

But Aljin was unaware.

Khalil's campaign was under Chance Letikva,

but organised by Erez Hadari, the director of Walls Of Hope.

We need to understand if Erez could be involved

in Chance Letikva campaigns on a global scale.

I've been travelling over the last two days by plane,

and spent hours on the road to get to this remote area

in north-western Colombia.

I just can't wrap my head around how these people

were able to find a child all the way here.

Ana is now ten.

Her mother died when she was just a baby.

She lives with her uncle, Vidal, and her father, Sergio.

She has recovered from a brain tumour

after receiving chemotherapy and surgery

through Colombia's public health system.

Sergio took Ana to a hospital

four hours away in the city of Cartagena.

It was during this difficult time

that the local Chance Letikva recruiter

contacted Sergio.

Isabel organised to meet up with Sergio and Ana.

She wasn't alone.

What was his name?

What did he introduce himself as to you?

Do you recognise this person?

This person?

Erez Hadari - again.

I'm just thinking back to when Aljin pointed him out.

And this was all the way in the Philippines

and now I'm all the way here in north-western Colombia,

and it feels like I'm kind of chasing this guy around the world.

Within a week of them meeting Erez,

Isabel turned up again, this time with a camera crew.

She took Ana and Sergio to a private clinic for filming.

Ana and Sergio were given a script

telling them exactly what to say

and even when they should cry.

Ana's Chance Letikva campaign went live just before Christmas 2023.

Within four months,

it appeared to have raised nearly $250,000.

Ana's dad, Sergio,

says they only ever received $260

on the day of filming.

Sergio and Ana did not know about the campaign or the money it raised.

PHONE RINGS

Erez! Hello. How are you?

Can I ask you something? Yes.

VOICE-In the Philippines,

after months of trying to get a hold of Erez,

Aljin finally gets him on the phone

and confronts him about Khalil's campaign.

What campaign? We don't have a campaign for three years.

For Khalil?

No, it's not... Never. Nothing happened.

Is that true?

Yeah. Because I see the link of Khalil's,

uh, fundraising is...still running,

but it's not stopped.

There's nothing there. There's no...

They... It didn't start.

They just did like a testing, two years ago.

Have you remembered the link that I sent you?

That it's $27,000, right? Yes.

I explained to you that there is cost of advertising,

so the company lost money.

OK. You understand? They lost money.

I lost money, too. The money that I gave you,

the money that I spent on production, I lost.

Like so many other parents,

Aljin is not given an apology

and is told the money went to advertising

without any evidence to support that claim.

Nearly two years after his death,

Khalil's campaign is still up

and accepting money.

We've monitored Erez's movements around the world

and addresses linked to him in Canada,

but he's nowhere to be found.

All we have is a phone number.

So I'm about to call Erez,

and I hope he picks up

because I have a lot of allegations to put forward to him.

LINE RINGS

LINE CONTINUES TO RING

No answer.

Eventually, Erez sends me a text.

He said, "Just so you know,

"the nonprofit has never been active since it was opened.

"We never used it."

I know that's not true.

Although he agrees to talk to me, he never picks up when I call.

He never gets back in touch.

I keep trying him.

He's clearly avoiding me.

Throughout this investigation, I've felt like I've unravelled

one of the worst things any human can do to another.

But meeting the families has restored my sense of hope.

They have shown me what resilience really looks like.

In Colombia, Ana is now completely cancer free.

She has returned to school and has dreams of becoming a doctor.

HE LAUGHS

Papa!

In Ukraine, Victoria's parents have received bad news.

She's been diagnosed with another brain tumour.

They are determined to keep fighting for their daughter's life.

Here's some of the other great content from the BBC World Service

that you can find this week.

As the US piled pressure on Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela

with a fresh round of sanctions

and threats of more military strikes,

the BBC sat down with opposition leader

and Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.

She has been accused by Venezuelan authorities

of acts of conspiracy, incitement of hatred and terrorism

as a result of her criticism of last year's elections.

You can watch the full exclusive interview now

on the BBC News YouTube channel and the BBC News website.

Now we're going to take you back to Ukraine

to hear about an extraordinary group of people caught up in the war.

At least 50,000 Ukrainians - soldiers and civilians -

have lost limbs since fighting began.

Now a Superhumans Center has been set up to support them

in their recovery.

BBC Global Women has been to meet some of them

and hear their inspiring stories.

We never meant to build just a prosthetic centre.

We wanted to build the future of Ukraine

as a country of superhumans, not a country of victims.

I'm Olga Rudnieva. I'm CEO and co-founder of Superhumans Center.

We provide services to people

who are wounded due to Russian aggression.

And we are restoring people's ability to walk,

to run, to do things that they love to do.

Most of the people who at Superhumans,

the fact that they are alive is a miracle by itself.

To be wounded in Ukraine meant,

you know, I'm going to be disabled for the rest of my life,

and infrastructure is not ready

and society is not ready

and medical system is not ready.

But I think our superhumans who are having families, kids,

getting back to work, opening their businesses,

they do understand that life is possible.

We also wanted to normalise in Ukraine

this ability to say, "OK, that's how the country is going to look like,

"that's OK."

We have 1.8 million people at the front lines right now,

50,000 people who lost their limbs.

Superhumans - they give hope and give strength

and braveness to those who are at the front lines right now.

Because the biggest fear of Ukrainian military guys

was to be wounded.

They call me mum.

Uh, and I feel like they are my kids.

They learn to walk with me.

Probably, that's one of the consequences.

They did learn to walk with their mothers,

and I was the second person...they learned how to walk.

Everyone in this country has some kind of trauma.

The trauma of loss, the trauma of witness. Moral trauma.

The trauma can ruin you, or it can build your superpower.

Thanks for joining me in London. We want your feedback on Global Eye.

Let us know what do you think on social media using the hashtag...

We'll be back on the 5th of January. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.