Sports Star Shared Selfie with iPhone Cable Up His Nose in Cancer Scam
A sports star has pleaded guilty to fraud after sharing a selfie showing an iPhone cable — made to look like a hospital tube — inserted up his nose. The photo fooled thousands and was used to scam people by falsely claiming he had cancer.
DJ Carey, one of Ireland’s most famous athletes and widely regarded as one of the greatest hurlers ever, appeared in Ireland’s Circuit Court last week. Hurling is a traditional Irish fast-paced sport played with a stick and ball.
Carey pleaded guilty to pretending to have cancer in order to trick people into giving him money for fake medical treatment.
The trial centers around a photograph that Carey took of himself and sent to victims, appearing to show him lying in a hospital bed with a tube up his nose.
The photograph, which has been widely shared online since Carey’s guilty plea, shows what looks like a hospital tube in his nose. However, on closer inspection of the image, the tube is actually an iPhone cable taped to his face and inserted into his nostrils.
Using this photo, Carey reportedly convinced people to send him money between 2014 and late 2022 by falsely claiming he needed funds for cancer treatment. The sports star even reportedly used the photo to deceive Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, founder of the mobile phone network Digicel.
At court last week, Carey pleaded guilty to 10 out of 21 counts of deception and fraud. Carey’s lawyer Colman Cody, said that while cancer had been referred to in the charges, Mr Carey had “very genuine health conditions” and had undergone heart surgery last year. The court heard that Mr Carey also suffered from mental health problems. Some 28 witnesses had been expected to give evidence for the prosecution during the trial.
The case comes after a report revealed that selfie spoofing scams have grown in popularity over the last year as a way for criminals to steal people’s identities and fraudulently open accounts in their name. Selfie spoofing entails taking a photograph of a person’s selfie — whether on a computer screen, printed on a piece of paper, or even an actual headshot on a different document.
