Catching a Fraudster: Scamanda Podcast Teaches Investigative Lessons

I love a good true crime podcast, so when a friend recommended Scamanda to me recently, I immediately started listening. The podcast tells the true story of bubbly and charismatic Amanda Riley who kept a detailed blog documenting her fight with cancer. Amanda became an inspiration to many, and people donated their time, gifts, and more than $100,000 to help her and her family. However, it turns out Amanda did not have cancer, and her story was all an elaborate lie.

The podcast is juicy, for sure. But it also provides useful insight into conducting investigations—both into medical fraud and in general. Some of my takeaways, from the perspective of a professional investigator, follow.

Online and social media research can be critical in an investigation. This seems like such an obvious statement to make these days, but the podcast reinforced this. Amanda kept an online blog detailing her alleged fight with cancer and the support she received from her community, a bitter custody battle over her stepdaughter, and other aspects of her life. She also regularly posted on social media profiles. When investigative producer Nancy Moscatiello first received a tip that Amanda may be lying about having cancer for her own financial benefit, Moscatiello began pouring through Amanda’s blog and social media posts and got an enormous amount of information about Amanda’s claims about her cancer diagnosis. The number of details made Amanda’s claims seem more believable on the surface, but they also gave Moscatiello a wealth of information to start fact-checking, as well as people to contact as potential sources. Amanda also posted photos on her blog and social media that showed her appearing healthy and as if she was gaining weight, despite her claims that she was getting sicker. This further fueled Moscatiello’s skepticism of Amanda’s cancer story.

Check public records. One of Moscatiello’s first steps in her investigation was to learn all she could about Amanda in public records. One particularly interesting observation came while she reviewed filings from Amanda and her husband’s bankruptcy. The couple repeatedly claimed online and in family court documents to be in debt due to Amanda’s cancer diagnosis. Yet, their bankruptcy filings listed pages and pages of creditors totaling more than $200,000 in debt—very little of which was for any kind of medical expenses. This was another red flag.

Keep good notes. During her investigation, Moscatiello logged everything she did and who she talked to. At 221B, we’ve also found that creating a players’ list and detailed chronology of events can be key to staying organized in some of the work we do. Moscatiello’s documentation became particularly useful when she contacted Detective Jose Martinez of the San Jose Police Department’s fraud division. She sent him her log, a timeline, and information on her sources. Martinez immediately had a wealth of information to start from once he started looking into Amanda’s claims himself.  

Ask creative questions. Due to HIPAA laws, medical practitioners cannot release people’s health information without a court-ordered subpoena, which poses a challenge to those investigating medical fraud. So rather than asking questions about Amanda specifically, Moscatiello and Detective Martinez initially asked medical staff questions like, do you do this procedure this certain way? Do you have a clinical trial going on, yes or no? That way they could fact-check Amanda’s version of events without getting into her personal medical history.

“I’m not trying to reach an end. I just want to reach the truth.” Detective Martinez said this when describing his chief goal as an investigator. I totally agree. It’s important to not enter an investigation with a particular result in mind. The goal should always be to reach the truth, whatever that may be.

SPOILER ALERT!

In case you’re wondering what happened to Riley, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with her efforts to solicit money for cancer treatments she didn’t need. In May 2022, she was sentenced to 60 months in prison and ordered to pay $105,513 in restitution. She is currently serving her sentence in federal prison.