A woman has told how her best friend, a single mother who worked as a fashion consultant at Harrods, faked a battle with cancer to defraud wellwishers out of £45,000.
Nicole Elkabbas, from Broadstairs, Kent, announced that she had been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in 2018, and friends, family and strangers rallied around and donated money to help her get life-saving treatment in Spain.
A GoFundMe page was set up with a photograph of Nicole being treated in hospital and it wasn’t long before the donations flooded in.
A new six-part series on Quest Red, The Big Swindle, airing on Saturday at 9pm, tells the stories of the most brazen and ruthless con artists, starting with Elkabbas.
Close friend of Nicole, Jo Mapp, reveals in the show how she was left ‘devastated’ by her pal’s diagnosis and refused to believe that she wasn’t ill – even when she was arrested.
A doctor who had previously treated Elkabbas for a gall bladder operation then raised suspicions over her diagnosis.
Jo had even handed over £2,000 out of her own pocket, as Elkabbas told her she needed the money urgently for medication, a sum that was repaid.
In a clip from the first episode, lead investigator, Detective Sergeant Marc Cananur, explained that when Elkabbas was first questioned by police, even they wondered if they’d got it wrong.
‘She was essentially very convincing,’ he said. ‘She was adamant that she was dealing with ovarian cancer, provided a timeline on where she’d gone (for treatment) and when, and who she had interacted with.
‘She mentioned the Teknon Hospital in Spain where she regularly went for treatment, she mentioned Dr Suarez who was treating her to hopefully prevent herself dying from cancer.
‘Now, she was that convincing that when the investigating officers came back to me, they were concerned that we may be dealing with a cancer patient as opposed to a fraudster.
Jo recalled the moment she found out about her friend’s illness, saying: ‘This is the cafe that Nicole Elkabbas brought me to when she told me she had cancer.
‘I was devastated. I put myself in her shoes, if I was ill in that position, how would I feel? ‘There was no type of treatment in the UK for what she needed and she said she would need to go abroad but that we needed to raise some funds.’
Jo then went on to tell the documentary: ‘It was all calculated from the beginning. She knew who to target, she knew what to say.’
The former Harrods fashion consultant pleaded not guilty in her trial in November 2020, claiming she genuinely believed she had cancer.
Elkabbas was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison in 2021.
She spent thousands on holidays, gambling, shopping sprees, restaurants and even £3,592 on a luxury box to watch a single Tottenham Hotspur match with the money.
The documentary will focus on one story of deceit each episode and those affected reveal the shocking details of what happened.
