Woman jailed for four years after pretending to have cancer and fundraising £250,000

'This is a bizarre, shocking case' police officer says

Jasmin Mistry has been sentenced to four years (Met Police)

A woman who defrauded her husband, his family and members of the public by pretending to have terminal cancer has been jailed for four years.

Jasmin Mistry was handed the sentence at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday, after pleading guilty to the charge of fraud by false representation at the same court on 24 October.

The 36-year-old lied about a cancer diagnosis to convince family members and strangers to give her over £253,000 between 2015 and 2017.

She first told her husband that she had brain cancer in 2013. She also showed him a WhatsApp message from a person he thought was her doctor.

A police investigation subsequently found that the message was sent by Mistry herself, using a different SIM card.

In December 2014, Mistry added to the lie and told her husband that she had six months to live.

She then sent herself further fictitious messages, posing as a doctor who suggested that she could be treated in the US for the price of £500,000.

Mistry’s husband began to raise money for the cancer treatment and contacted friends and family to ask for donations.

Twenty members of the fraudster’s extended family donated money to help her.

The Loughborough resident also pretended to be single on a dating website, where she met a man who gifted her nearly £7,500.

Her schemes extended beyond cancer. Mistry pretended to be a financial trader and told two members of the public that she could invest their money.

She convinced them to give her around £10,000.

The fraudster’s lies were discovered when her husband’s friend saw a photograph of one of her purported brain scans.

His friend found the same image on Google and explained that the pictured tumour would was so severe that it would be fatal to the person living with it.

Mistry’s husband discovered the SIM cards used by his wife and confronted her about the fraud.

Eventually his wife admitted that she had lied. The couple have since divorced.

Police officers were contacted in November 2017 and Mistry was subsequently arrested and charged.

She told detectives that she did not know why she had lied.

Investigators reviewed her finances and medical records, which confirmed that she had never been diagnosed with brain cancer.

“Jasmin 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,” said DC Jon Bounds.

“This is a bizarre, shocking case.”

“I am glad for the victims of this deceit that they have seen justice.”