World Of Secrets - The Child Cancer Scam: 5. The agency

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

The investigation into why millions of dollars promised to families with sick children never reaches them moves to Israel. There we find misleading addresses and more questions than answers. Who is making these online campaigns which claim to help desperate parents? New ones keep appearing, but the story’s the same. Season 10 of World of Secrets, The Child Cancer Scam, is a BBC Eye investigation for the BBC World Service. Please note, the image is being used for illustrative purposes only and the child depicted is a model.

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room. Explore what the charter holder advantage looks like at cFA institute.org. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallata or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. Tise and Cs Apply. It's a hot morning here in Tel Aviv and we are headed to the address listed on the

Chancellor Tikva website. I want to see if there's an office there and if there's someone we can finally speak to. The address is also the one listed for Chancellor Tikva on the official charity database. Israeli journalist Tom Tzu Weiswelder is with me. So we're going to a city called Bacemesh, which is religious city. We're going to a neighborhood that is populated with Orthodox Jews. And that means we need to come in a modest clothing. So I brought for you some scarves and so you can cover your shoulders. And my chest, okay. We're going to try not to draw too much attention to ourselves because we want to be respectful and we want to try to get to the charity's offices.

Bet Shamesh has a large Orthodox Jewish or Haredi community. It's about 30 kilometers west of Jerusalem. They have the traditional dress for the men with the top hat and the jackets, even when it's very hot outside, they wear it. And for the women, they need to be modest, which means that the skirt has to be after the knee line and the shirt has to be covering the shoulders. They are a tight-knit community with their own schools, charity networks and neighborhood institutions. Things that's going on inside the community, a lot of times doesn't go out to the general public.

So we are just arriving at the address on the Chancellor Tikva website and this seems like a residential neighborhood. There are lots of mid-rise apartment blocks and I can see lots of families, men and children in traditional hereddy outfits, just walking around. It's fairly quiet. Okay, so the address is supposed to be right here. We find these cream-colored apartment blocks with glass balconies. First, we check the mailbox.

at the entrance of the one that matches the address. So none of these mailboxes say Chancellor Tikva? No, and none of the last names are similar to the members registered in Chancellor Tikva. But after a few minutes, a man with a long beard wearing a white shirt and glasses comes out of a building. We ask him if he's heard of Chancellor Tikva.

Chancellor Tikva? A charity, you've not heard of it. He tells us there are some porter cabins around the side of the building with the same address. Okay. So we go and look there. But there's nothing here that spells office or charity or anything else. There's another man coming out. So should we walk out?

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice another man who starts following us. He asks us if we have permission to record. record. He tells us this is private land. Tom tells him it's not. Before we know it, more men join them. I count four and they're all looking at us. It feels like they've come out of nowhere. One of them is on the phone. He's got his hand on his hip and stares at us intently as he makes a call. Things are starting to get tense. Now he threatened us. Now he said if you don't want to be a mess, you're going to go. Should we just head off?

It's clear they don't want us here. So we basically just had to flee the chance to take for a dress. He said that if we don't live in 10 minutes, he's going to make a mess. And he was saying that while he was on the phone, like seemingly calling for backup. And there was a lot of people grouping around us, and it became kind of scary. Yeah, we were basically surrounded at one point. And then another man was saying, this is private property, step back, and they clearly wanted us to leave. At some point, I also got scared.

Like when he said, leave in 10 minutes or it's going to be a mess, I also felt like we need to go from there. Because this is not a safe environment for us. of Secrets. Season 10. The Child Cancer Scam. A BBC World Service investigation. I'm Simi Jola Osham. Episode 5, The Agency. I can't get through to anyone on the phone, but there is a marketing agency here in Jerusalem that appears to have done work for them. In the corner of this chance to take for video

is a flame-shaped logo. It belongs to Turbo Digital. When you click on it, it takes you through to their YouTube channel where there's video after video of sick people. They all follow a familiar script, heartfelt, tearful stories to emotive music. On its website, Turbo Digital says it does what it loves. People today are incredibly smart, including donors, they know when something's real. If it's authentic, they'll give.

If it feels off, they won't. This is TurboDigital's director and owner Shulimit Sigalzlotsky, or Shulie. She's speaking on the Clickabilly podcast in 2019 about her work. The host asks her how she conveys the feeling that this is a genuine campaign and not some kind of scam. I direct the videos myself. I sit with a person, look them in the eye, and sometimes when people see heartbreaking videos, they don't realize how much more heartbreaking the raw footage behind the scenes was.

When I understand the case deeply, it becomes easier for me to make sure the text reflects what's needed. She knows, she says, how to get into people's hearts and into their pockets. You see a parent, like you, who loves their child. Each of us connects from our own place. Maybe it reminds you of your younger brother, your mother, or someone else you love. There's so much more that unites us than divides us. Crowdfunding proves that over and over again, which I find amazing.

On the Turbo Digital website, in the active campaign section, I find a carousel of fundraisers, including a chance to, Letitifah one for a little boy called Hector. On the actual campaign page, it says it has raised nearly a million dollars. But when we contact Hector's family in Mexico, just like Anna, Kalil and Victoria, they say they have not received any of the campaign's donations. tragically, their little boy, Hector, has since died. We've spent hours looking at the various Chancellor Tikva campaigns and websites,

and my teammate, Jack Goodman, has managed to make some more connections. So, Chancellor Tikva in English, is Chance for Hope. And there's a web domain that we've seen linked to quite a few of the Chancellor for campaign pages. The domain is chance for hope.org.com. So you can look up domains to see who registered them and I looked up this domain to see who registered it and it's shoe limits.

It's got her full name, her address, her phone number, email address. It's all there. And there's more. That URL has actually come up before. I'm going to take you to Khalil's campaign page, which is still online, which is on a crowdfunding platform. You scroll down the page a bit, and then there are four links, inviting you to donate in dollars, euros, pounds, and shekels. And when you hover the mouse over the links, you can see that it leads to a web page with that Chance for Hope URL?

So you're saying there's a direct link between the domain registered by Shulamit and Kalil's campaign. Yeah. Shulimit Sigalzlotsky, or Shulie, is in her late 20s, and she's had a fair amount of press coverage in Israel. In an article in the Jerusalem Post, she talks about proudly leading a team of mostly Haredi women, like herself. They are the real superwoman, she's quoted as saying. And in another article, she boasts about how easy it is to make money.

300,000 shekels a day in one campaign. Sometimes I go to bed, wake up in the morning, and the campaign has raised another quarter of a million online. It's hard to sleep like that. It isn't all good news, though. Shunamit also features in a TV investigation by Israel's Channel 11, from 2023, where she's accused of using unethical practices when making fundraising videos.

In this footage that looks like it was shot on a mobile phone, Shulamit is saying to a mother, through an interpreter, that she wants to film her child alone. Another mother, called Oksana, also describes her experience in the documentary. When they came to film the video with Alyssa, Shula was there with an interpreter. They asked that I say that Elisa was dying and that we desperately needed money. They said cry. Then they told me, not like that, you need to cry louder.

I spoke to two other mothers who say they had similar experiences with Shulimit in Israel. One, I'll call Natalia, because she doesn't want me to use her real name. In 2022, she traveled to Israel from Ukraine to get a bone marrow transplant for her one-year-old daughter, but it was expensive, and she found her money quickly running out. That's when she says she was approached by someone offering help. It all started when I got a call from a man who said he was the director of some foundation. He said that he would really like to. to help me and my daughter.

He offered to film my video that we would post on some social platforms to raise some money. Natalia felt they did not have a choice. That was probably my last hope. We needed funds urgently. I hoped it would really help us and we would be able to raise money quickly and pay the clinic. The man wasn't working with Chancellor Tikva or Wars of Hope. He said he was representing a different organization. A group came, two women and one man.

They put a bit of makeup on me, put my girl on a bed and told me to tell our story in a way that will make people cry. They told me to say that she was almost dying. They said I should say things like, the child is feeling very unwell. She is dying and money is needed urgently. Well, it was not a very pleasant experience. The whole situation wasn't normal. One of the women directing her, she says, was Shulimit. She was there, and she was the one who told me to say these horrible things.

By the time the filming had ended and they had packed up and left, how did you feel? I just sat and cried because I didn't understand what kind of madness was going on. Three months later, Natalia says she was contacted by Shulamit, who shared a link to the campaign. Natalia was amazed to watch the donations pour in, eventually reaching over $66,000. But Natalia says she didn't receive any of it. And when she asked, she said she was told the funds had all been used for the production costs, the organisation's overheads, and advertising. It's so similar to the experiences of the other families we've heard from

whose campaigns were run by Chancellor Tikva and Walls of Hope. I really want to hear what Shulamit has to say about all this, but after days of back and forth, she declined to talk to me. Instead, she asks me to send questions over email. A few days later, we receive a written reply. TurboDigital said they have never instructed that any parent cause suffering to their child and that every production is done with sensitivity, gentleness and full approval by the family. In terms of where the campaign money that never reached the families has gone,

Shulamit insists TurboDigital has nothing to do with it. If the goal is a fundraiser campaign, the donations are directed straight to the association's bank account. We never have had access to a client's account, and we have no way to examine the association's manner of funds management. She didn't deny working with Chancellor Tikva, but said, We didn't shoot their ads and didn't stage them. We received ready materials for editing, and we did that. She says they cut ties with them in mid-20203,

and that they registered the web domain for them as a technical service. It was needed to verify emails. This is a service the association requests for the reason presented by them. Need of professional help in verifying a domain. And on why Hector's campaign was still on her website, she said. Due to lack of attention during building the new site, this campaign was not removed from active campaigns to the finished campaign zone. Thanks to your notice, we have removed the old version completely,

and soon we'll air the new site. I did notice that after we asked her about it, it, TurboDigital's homepage changed, with a message saying its site is under construction. Shulimit didn't tell us who at Chancellor Tikva she did work with, but said she doesn't know Erez Hedari. The Free Birth Society made millions selling a simple message to pregnant women. You don't need ultrasounds, doctors or midwife. You can free birth, but behind the scenes, terrible things were happening.

I feel ashamed about this, but I didn't think that the deaths were bad until a year after I left. Subscribe to the Guardian Investigates Feed to get all the episodes of The Birthkeepers. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, out now. In Israel, the body that owes you. oversees the registration of charities is the Israeli corporations authority. It's part of the Ministry of Justice. The current spokesperson said no one was available to talk, but the former head agreed to meet me.

Hi, I'm El Globus. I'm a lawyer, an Israeli lawyer. I was the head of the Israeli authority of a company who really is dealing with several fields. One of them is NGO. Have you ever heard of cases where, charities exploit families by offering to crowd fund for them and then they never give them the money. We heard about it in several NGOs. There is a sick person and he's not getting money at all or not getting some of the money and actually the NGO is using the money for other purposes, which is illegal actually. It's illegal. And what did you do about it when you heard about these cases?

stage first we can tell all the public this NGO is not acting properly and we can do even more than that to shut them down completely. I tell him what I found out about Chancellor Tikva. He says he can't comment on specific cases, but... If they're cheating, it's totally wrong, it's even criminal. If they're taking their money, the money that they're raised to a sick child to their pocket. It's like stealing money. It's really wrong. I explained that we couldn't find any sign of their office at their registered address. What do they do in cases like that? We don't go regularly to check whether that's the office of that NGO or charity. If we have an information that that address is wrong, we can tell them, listen, something is wrong, write a correct address. And if not,

will do one or two or three. In the end, not because of that, but because of other things, which are most serious, we might even stop the operation of this NGO. The problem is that an NGO can operate, and even if we shut it down, then it can open another NGO and start over again. If someone has created a charity, the charity is seen as fordulent, they shut it down, that same person can create another charity.

If I'm telling you now that this is a problem, that lots of families have been affected by this, does this not show that the Ministry of Justice is just not doing enough to prevent this from happening? Yeah, but I don't think you can stop it like with 100%. For instance, if somebody is stealing something from your house, it doesn't mean that the police is not okay or the Ministry of Justice is not acting okay. Feast would always be. And still, even in that field, feasts are always trying to find different ways or the same way

to steal money or to operate illegally. After I'd left the country, the Israeli Corporations Authority did send us a statement. They said that if someone is found breaking the law, they will be barred from working in the sector again. The network we've uncovered does seem to keep keep reinventing itself, shape-shifting, name-changing. In Ukraine, Oleg spoke about there being different organisations each time.

I hate to put it this way, but they work kind of like a conveyor belt. So far, we have found Wars of Hope, Chance for Hope, which is Chancellor Litikva, the Little Angels, St. Teresa, and now a new one called St. Raphael. all linked. One of the archived St. Raphael campaigns has Chancellor Tikva's American phone number on it. And over the last few months, more campaign videos have been coming out of Ukraine under St. Raphael.

Jack's been monitoring them. The first one we saw was videos of a little girl crying in a, what looked like a hospital room. But the room she was in looked really familiar. there was a kind of a wooden cabinet and it's because that cabinet looks so similar to the room where Victoria was filmed.

In Anglholm. Anglholm Clinic in Chenebtsy. There's been two other campaign videos since then and I suspect that they were also filmed there just because of the look of the room. Are you talking about the wood paneling? The wood panelling, some of the cabinets. Similar bed frames as well.

Exactly. when you've been looking at these videos for so long, something was instantly recognisable. So we called one of these children's parents, and she told us a very familiar story. She ended up filming in Angleholm, which does seem to be a bit of a hub for this operation. She told us that she only received $2,000 on the day of filming,

similar to Olena. And the person this mother said, helped organize it? Tatiana. So the mother told us that Tatiana had got them involved in this filming and Oleg was also there on the day of filming. Oleg, who filmed Victoria's campaign? Yeah. When our Ukrainian producer calls the clinic to confirm what Tatiana Haliafka's role is there, we are told she manages Angulham's advertising and communications. We put all our findings to them and got this response. The information you communicated has caused us considerable concern.

The clinic has never participated in nor supported any fundraising initiatives organized by any organization. The clinic did not receive and did not issue any letter, request, permission or approval for photography or video recording on its premises for the purposes to which you refer. The clinic formally declares that any statements, assumptions or insinuations concerning the clinic's involvement in foreign fundraising activities or the treatment of children with oncological diseases are entirely unfounded and categorically false.

And when it comes to Tatiana Halievka, they said, In view of the information you provided, the clinic has made the decision to terminate her employment. You may address any personal questions directly to Miss Halavka. Well, it's time to call her directly and ask her about her involvement. There's a number for her that's on telegram. Says she's online. So, tell her.

Katiana is online. I can see she's active on telegram right now, and she's just ignored my call. And I've tried her a couple of times on this number, on another number, and yeah, she's just not responding. So I'm going to send her a text message now. And let's see if she gets back to me. She didn't reply and doesn't respond to our email, spelling out all the allegations against her. including how she recruited families and used her clinic as cover for filming. Back in the Philippines, it's been a while since Algin has spoken to or seen Erez Hadari. After we showed her Khalil's live campaign, she sent it straight to Erez, but he ignored it. Then, out of the blue, she gets a text from Erez-Hadari, saying he's coming to the Philippines.

Algin wants to know what his plans are, but she also wants to finally be able to ask him about Khalil's campaign, about the $27,000 it raised, and about the fact that it's still taking donations. Her husband, Josin, takes the kids out of the room, so it will be quiet. she composes herself. My colleague tracks the floor is in Cebu to record it. I'm calling Erez to ask why the campaign is still live, even though Khalil is no longer with us.

I want to know his reason for not stopping the campaign. I want to know why he won't leave Khalil alone. It's her chance to try and get some answers, but she doesn't know how it will go. or how he will react. It's very important to get justice for Khalil. I think he'll be caught off guard and he might not answer. He doesn't have the right to be angry with us.

He's the one who tricked us. Would he even have the nerve to be mad at us? I should be the one who's angry. I think he used the money for himself to travel around and be. con other people. But Erez doesn't pick up. Contact may be offline. How do you feel about that?

Excited, John. I was excited to speak to him. Ask how he is, what he's doing. It says, last seen a moment ago. But then, two weeks later, while Algin's at home with her kids, she looks down at her phone. There's a video call coming in. It's Erez. Erie. Hello. How are you?

Where are you? That's next time on World of Secrets. If you have any information you would like to share with me about this investigation, you can send an email to simi at bbc.co.uk. This has been episode 5 of 6 of season 10 of World of Secrets, the child cancer scam from the BBC World Service. Thank you for listening. We love it when people leave a rating or review for the podcast

because it helps new listeners find it. So if you've got a minute to do so, then please do. The child cancer scam is presented and investigated by me, Simi Jola O'sho, with Jack Goodman and Ned Davis. It's written and produced by Neil McCarthy and Rob Wilson. Rebecca Henshki is the executive producer, and the sound design and mix is by Andy Fell. In Israel, our reporters are Tom Tzu Weiswelder and Shaked Al-Wher.

and in the Philippines, it's tracks afloor. Voiceover by Jay Baruzi, Natalia Makahon, Ina Kossenska, and Genia Shidlovska. It's a BBCI production for the BBC World Service.