Beggars face 10 years for fake child cancer collection con

Two Romanian conmen who claimed to be collecting money for critically ill children are facing up to 10 years in jail after they were arrested by police in Austria.

Prosecutors say that the pair are part of a professional organised begging gang because they were spotted going from house to house at St. Jakob in Rosental with professionally created documents indicating they were authorised as charity collectors.

The pair aged 20 and 22 and in fact only come to Austria in order to beg and claimed that they needed to raise money for a four-year-old child that was suffering from leukaemia.

The pair also claimed to other people that they had lost everything in the financial crisis and were struggling to raise four children.

Police tracked down 25 people who donated money to the pair although it’s not known how much in total they raised from the con.