They raised 420.000 euros for alleged treatment
Fundraising campaigns for the treatment of sick children are an issue that often raises doubts about whether and to what extent donations are properly disposed of or fraudulent.
Many times the hundreds of thousands of dollars or euros that ordinary people rush to offer with their hearts actually manage to save a child's life. And sometimes various scams are revealed with supposed treatments that are never done or even children do not exist. Fernando Blanco and Margarita Garau from Spain are one such case.
The couple managed to set up a scam of hundreds of thousands of euros, raising money for their sick daughter. However, few of them were available there, as most were simply used to make a very luxurious life.
The two have appeared several times in the media calling for donations to help their daughter undergo a pioneering treatment in the US. Somehow they managed to raise 420.000 euros for the alleged treatment, which the court found did not even exist.
Almost all the money went to my parents' personal expenses and various luxury items, from impressive cars to very expensive watches. Of these, only 20.000 euros were actually spent on medical expenses.
The little girl, named Nadia Nerea, who is now 14 years old, actually suffers from a rare genetic disorder called trichothiodystrophy. It causes a variety of symptoms, including sensitivity to light, weak hair and nails, verbal and mental problems and the possibility of premature death.
However, the court found that the girl was not in any immediate danger, contrary to what her father had publicly claimed. There is also no cure for this disorder, although the symptoms can be alleviated. The parents deliberately exaggerated their daughter's condition in order to raise money for various non-existent treatments they had invented themselves. At first they shared their daughter's story with the neighbors, but between 2010 and 2016, various TV appearances began exposing the scale of the scam.
The father claimed that extremely expensive surgeries had been performed in Paris and Houston, but he had no proof of this, while the hospitals he named did not even exist. It was also found that neither he nor his wife had a passport, so it was impossible for them to have done so. these supposed trips to the US. Fernando Blanco was sentenced to five years in prison and Margarita Garau to three and a half.