Cancer conwoman Belle Gibson traded crypto instead of paying a $410,000 penalty for duping Australians, a court has heard.
Forensic accountants have been examining two year’s worth of the 27-year-old’s financial statements after she failed to pay the fine handed down for five breaches of consumer law in September 2017.
“[The documents] reveal a great many transactions overwhelmingly in the nature of discretionary spending,” Consumer Affair Victoria barrister Elle Nikou Madalin told the court today.
He detailed money spent on cryptocurrencies, futures trading and a sports betting account.
Conwoman claims to heal herself
Gibson famously claimed to have brain cancer and suggested she healed herself through diet and natural remedies.
She used the fabricated story to attract sympathy and sympathetic media coverage.
Thousands of other cancer sufferers and those interested in cancer prevention bought her her Whole Pantry recipe book and Whole Pantry app on the basis of the claims, netting her more than $440,000.
Gibson promised to donate money from the proceeds of the book and app to various charities including a boy with brain cancer.
Gibson has so far donated just $10,000 of the promised money to charity and has been told in the past she risks going to jail.
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