THE INSTA FRAUDSTER
Sick fraudster lied about being trafficked, raped 50 times a night and having cancer – before mistake caught her out
The fraudster's mum says her daughter has been diagnosed with borderline schizophrenia
WATCHING the yellow balloons drift up into the sky, Becky Mackintosh looked over at her friend Coco and felt heartbroken for the young woman next to her.
“She’d told me her sister Anna was murdered by their stepfather when Coco was 12. Me and my husband had arranged the balloon release in autumn 2019 on what would have been Anna’s birthday, after Coco asked us to help her mark the day. It was very emotional,” says Becky, 60, from Utah, USA.
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Later that evening, Coco sent Becky a grateful text message.
“Thank you for making not only me, but also my dearest Anna, feel cherished and loved today,” she wrote.
But Becky would soon find out that none of what Coco had told her about Anna was true.
Coco Berthmann’s lies about a murdered sister were just the tip of an iceberg of fraud and deception spanning at least a decade, during which time she made countless claims, including that she’d been abandoned in an orphanage as a baby, trafficked and raped up to 50 times a night as a teenager, and that singer Céline Dion wanted to adopt her.
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Then, in February 2022, Coco – an influencer and self-described human-rights activist and sex-trafficking victim – hit the headlines after she was charged with communications fraud in Utah.
She’d asked for donations via Instagram for alternative therapies, fraudulently claiming she had mantle cell lymphoma, a rare form of cancer, and had taken $10,000 from well-meaning strangers.
In July 2022, a judge closed the case against her after she repaid the money – but her arrest and story sparked the interest of Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Sara Ganim and producer Karen Given.
Last year, they released their 10-part true-crime podcast, Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story, to unravel the lies and discover whether there was any truth to Coco’s incredible stories.
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Born in December 1993 in Celle, Germany, Coco was originally named Sandra-Renata Ruff.
She had an older sister, Magdalena, and a brother, Mike – both of whom are still alive.
Her parents divorced when she was four, and she would later claim her mother’s boyfriend abused her.
There was an investigation, but not enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Coco’s mother, Renata, told the podcast that her daughter started having problems when she was 12.
She struggled to make friends and began to self-harm.
Doctors told Renata the problems were due to puberty.
Aged 16, Coco ran away and checked herself into a clinic that treated children who’d had traumatic experiences, although it’s unclear what she claimed had happened to her.
In 2013, she changed her name to Coco Verajeanne Berthmann before graduating from high school at 21.
In 2015, Coco moved to the US, where she worked as an au pair in New York and then in Las Vegas as a nanny.
In 2017, she went to Salt Lake City, Utah, to attend a training course for nannies.
There, she converted to Mormonism.
It was then that she began to spread the stories about being trafficked, both within the Mormon community and on social media, ostensibly to raise awareness of the issue.
In 2019, Coco met Becky through their local church.
By then, Coco had 60,000 Instagram followers who she regularly updated with stories about her horrific childhood.
She claimed her mother sold her for sex with up to 50 men a night, chained her up and forced her to watch other children being murdered.
'Very likeable'
She also claimed to have been forced to have an abortion without anaesthetic, and to have been kidnapped by a therapist treating her, and said she suffered trauma, flashbacks, panic attacks and anxiety.
Becky offered Coco a place to stay in July 2019.
Her husband Scott worked away a lot and her six children had all moved out.
“I thought: ‘This brave, courageous girl is incredible.’
“She was a darling – young, friendly and very likeable,”
Becky says. “We met for lunch, and she told me she’d been staying with another family for a year and felt it was time to move on.
“My heart went out to her.”
Three days after moving in, a tearful Coco told Becky she’d received an email from a lawyer in Germany reporting her mother had taken her own life.
“She cried for hours,” recalls Becky.
“That was day three.
“On day five, the same attorney emailed to say her brother had been found dead from an overdose.
“Again, there were hours of crying.”
But the tragedy was not as it appeared.
She wanted me to lie next to her, so she felt safe. Then she told me all the horrible things that happened to her
“By the end of the month, Coco claimed the lawyer who’d contacted her had actually been hired by her mother in a ruse to lure her back to Germany, where the family were intent on silencing her,” Becky says.
“Three weeks after she moved in, I started seeing a therapist myself.
“Coco told me that lots of people had cut her off because she became too much for them, so I wanted to learn how to set boundaries so I could help her.
“I forgave a lot of her behaviour because of her background.”
Coco demanded Becky’s attention all the time.
At night, she’d text Becky from her bedroom and say she was feeling scared and suicidal.
“She wanted me to lie next to her, so she felt safe. Then she told me all the horrible things that happened to her,” Becky remembers.
Along with the balloon release, Coco also threw a party to mark the 10th anniversary of her “escape” from trafficking, and became involved with a number of anti-trafficking groups.
She even appeared at events with child-safety campaigner Elizabeth Smart, 36, who was famously abducted and held captive in Salt Lake City when she was 14.
Coco turned Becky’s life upside down for five months, but things finally came to head when she posted on social media about the death of her friend Tony from cancer.
A week later, she confessed to Becky that Tony wasn’t dead after all.
Becky recalls: “She said it was his friend who died instead. I thought: ‘Are you kidding me?’”
'I was furious'
Becky talked to some of Tony’s friends and found out that not only was he alive and well, but what Coco had told her about him wasn’t true – he’d never been in a hospice, he didn’t even have a friend who died and he hadn’t actually spoken to Coco for five months.
“I was furious,” says Becky.
“I thought: ‘I can’t trust her.’ I said to her: ‘Coco, you are so gifted, you could be a power for good, but you have so many problems lying and manipulating.’ She replied: ‘Yes, I agree.’ She was very humble. She thanked me and gave me a hug. Then she moved out the next day.
“For a while afterwards, I couldn’t talk about her without crying – there was so much pent-up emotion,” says Becky.
Meanwhile, Coco went to live with wealthy Utah businessman Paul Hutchinson and his partner Vanessa – until she was caught out in a lie about being abused by their therapist, and moved out.
She then went to several police stations, claiming Paul and Vanessa had been grooming her and had plans to traffick her.
However, no charges were ever brought against them.
By June 2021, Coco had posted on Instagram she was turning her back on Mormonism and that she was bisexual.
Other “Berthmannisms” she shared included claims she was training to be an international human rights lawyer, she was working undercover with the FBI and that she was raped by a Utah politician.
In August 2021, Utah-based investigative journalist Lynn Packer released a YouTube video exposing what he called: “The Coco Berthmann Hoax”.
The exposé includes footage of a TEDx Talk Coco gave, in which she claims she was raped daily as a child.
She says her mother was the head of a trafficking ring and that she escaped in 2009, aged 15.
Lynn tracked down Coco’s mother in Germany who denied all the allegations and provided “dozens of records” to support the denial.
She said Coco had been diagnosed with borderline schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, and that she’d taken legal steps to have the allegations taken down.
We wanted to really investigate everything Coco had said and see if it was possible
It was early the following year, when Coco was arrested for communications fraud, that her fantasy life finally unravelled.
By that point, many of the people who’d helped her over the years now believed she was a pathological liar.
One of them reported her Instagram post about her cancer diagnosis, and she was arrested.
She repaid the money she had raised, so was spared jail, and it might have remained a niche story among their close-knit Utah Mormon community had it not been for the Believable podcast that followed, presented by Sara Ganim and Karen Given.
Sara, from New York, explains: “We didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
“We wanted to really investigate everything Coco had said and see if it was possible.
“To see what was true or false.”
Their painstaking investigation lasted a year and involved hundreds of hours of interviews and two trips to Germany to speak to Coco’s relatives. It became all-consuming.
Karen, from Boston, continues: “The story Coco tells is incredibly complex.
“If you then try to break it down to what’s true and what’s not, it becomes exponentially more complex.”
When Coco moved out of Becky’s home in late 2019, that was the last contact the two women had.
Soon after, Becky joined a social media support group of other people who’d helped Coco in the past and had subsequently been manipulated and lied to by her.
Members shared their stories of Coco’s lies, fake illnesses and dramas,
which they’d all been swept up in over the years.
Sara and Karen tried to separate fact from fiction and often gave Coco the benefit of the doubt.
'She wanted everyone's attention'
“Sex-trafficking victims, and especially child sex-trafficking victims, often change their stories or tell their stories in stages. They do sometimes lie. We wanted to unpack the details and see if it was a case that none of her stories are true, or if there were some truths,” says Karen.
“There’s no evidence for her being trafficked, but it is clear she suffers from some form of mental illness, so is it right to criticise the actions of someone who is clearly suffering and not getting the help they need?” says Sara.
The journalists both believe money was not the main driver for Coco.
“I think maybe it was attention. She wanted everyone’s attention 100% of the time,” says Karen.
Since the court case in 2022, Coco’s social media accounts have remained dormant, but Becky has been contacted by people who’ve listened to the Believable podcast and come into contact with Coco herself.
Becky says they tell her Coco is still in Utah, still claiming to be a trafficking victim – and still charming her way into people’s homes.
“I think she needs professional help,” Becky says.
“She knows what she’s doing.
“It is intentional.
“It is emotional abuse.
“I hate to say anyone is a bad person, but she’s not a nice person.
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“She is manipulative.
“I am sad she is still out there doing it.”
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