Woman jailed for faking cancer to claim £253,000 from relatives

Jasmin Mistry, 36, from Loughborough.

A woman from Loughborough who pretended to have cancer so she could claim £253,000 from her former husband and his family has been jailed for four years.

Jasmin Mistry, 36, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday 14 December, after pleading guilty to one count of fraud by false representation on Wednesday 24 October, according to the Metropolitan Police.

Ms Mistry told her husband she had cancer in 2013 and used a different sim card to send herself false WhatsApp messages pretending to be her doctor confirming the diagnosis in order to back her claim.

In December 2014, Ms Mistry told her then husband she had six months to live after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

Using further false messages from her “doctor”, Ms Mistry said she could be treated in the United States but it would cost around £500,000.

Her husband contacted family and friends to ask for donations for her treatment.

Suspicions were raised about Ms Mistry’s story when her husband’s friend found an image of her brain scan on Google and said, according to the Met Police, “the tumour was so severe that it would be fatal for the person with it”.

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Her former husband later discovered the fake sim cards his wife was using to send the fake doctors messages.

Ms Mistry admitted to lying when she was confronted by her ex-husband.

She was also found to have defrauded a man she met on a dating website of £7,500, and two members of the public of £10,000 after pretending to be a foreign exchange and stock shares trader.

Ms Mistry was arrested last November after police were contacted and, when interviewed, she admitted to officers she was not terminally ill and did not know why she lied.

The total sum of money that had been defrauded was calculated by the Met Police as £253,122, with 20 members of Ms Mistry’s extended family and eight others found to have given her money.

Detective constable Jon Bounds said: “I am glad for the victims of this deceit that they have seen justice.

“Jasmine Mistry went to extreme lengths to manipulate those closest to her emotionally and financially to defraud her now-former husband and his family out of a large sum of money.

“This is a bizarre, shocking case.

“Our investigation revealed the scale of the fraud and the severity of the offending which has resulted in a substantial custodial sentence.”

A woman who pretended to have cancer and claimed over £250,000 from her then husband, his family and the public has been jailed for four years, police said.

Jasmin Mistry, 36, from Loughborough, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday December 14, after pleading guilty to one count of fraud by false representation on October 24, according to the Metropolitan Police.

Ms Mistry first told her husband she had cancer in 2013, using a different Sim card to send herself fake WhatsApp messages pretending to be her doctor confirming the diagnosis in order to support her claim.

In December 2014, Ms Mistry told her husband she had six months to live after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

Using further fake messages from her doctor, Ms Mistry said she could be treated in the US but it would cost around £500,000.

Her husband then contacted family and friends to ask for donations for her treatment.

Suspicions were raised about Ms Mistry’s story when her husband’s friend found her brain scan on Google and said, according to the Met Police, “the tumour was so severe that it would be fatal for the person with it”.

Her ex-husband subsequently found the fake Sim cards his wife had been using to send the fictitious doctors messages and when he confronted her, Ms Mistry admitted she had lied.

She was also found to have defrauded a man she met on a dating website of £7,500, and two members of the public of £10,000 after pretending to be a trader and saying she could invest their money.

Ms Mistry was arrested in November 2017 after police were contacted and, when interviewed, she told officers she was not terminally ill and did not know why she had lied.

The total fraud amount was calculated by the Met Police as £253,122, with 20 members of Ms Mistry’s extended family and eight others found to have given her money.

Detective constable Jon Bounds said: “I am glad for the victims of this deceit that they have seen justice.

Jasmine Mistry went to extreme lengths to manipulate those closest to her emotionally and financially to defraud her now-former husband and his family out of a large sum of money.

“This is a bizarre, shocking case.

“Our investigation revealed the scale of the fraud and the severity of the offending which has resulted in a substantial custodial sentence.”

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