The Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday indicted a woman, surnamed Lu (呂), on charges of fraud and document forgery after she allegedly forged medical receipts for stray cats to scam animal lovers online for NT$227,000 over two months.
The office said Lu frequented a Facebook fanpage called “Crazy Cat Club” and posted comments on how to care for stray cats.
As part of raising funds online, Lu allegedly forged receipts from three local veterinary clinics, greatly inflating the actual cost of having the cats treated, the office said.
From May to July 2016, Lu posted photographs of three stray cats on Facebook and asked for donations to treat and care for the unhealthy cats, the office said.
Lu also posted the allegedly forged receipts and a photograph of her savings book to the fanpage, which has hundreds of thousands of members, the office said.
Lu told prosecutors that she received NT$227,000 in donations from June to July 2016, when the actual medical bills amounted to less than NT$10,000.
A Kaohsiung-based veterinarian, a member of the club, noticed some questionable details on the receipts and suspected that Lu might be inflating her actual costs, the office said.
After calling the clinics in Tainan about the receipts, the veterinarian brought the case to the attention of the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, the office said.
Once she learned that her scheme had been exposed, Lu relinquished to the Tainan veterinary clinic the stamp and four receipts that she had forged using the clinic’s name, the office said, adding that the clinic had later turned over the items to the police to be used in the investigation.
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