Woman faked cancer to scam boyfriend

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GLASGOW, Scotland, June 5 (UPI) -- A woman has admitted in a Scottish court that she conned a sympathetic lover out of thousands of pounds by pretending to have terminal cancer.

Anne Marie McKeown, who pleaded guilty Wednesday in Glasgow, is in prison while she awaits sentencing, The Times of London reported. She scammed 300,000 pounds ($600,000) from Ewan Cameron, a Lanarkshire truck driver she met through a lonely hearts advertisement.

Investigators say that McKeown discovered early in her relationship with Cameron that he had money in trust he had inherited from relatives. He first paid for cosmetic breast surgery and then, soon after, she told him she had intestinal cancer.

McKeown went to great lengths to fake the disease, including having tattoos that mimicked surgical scars and using a colostomy bag. The money Cameron thought was paying for medical treatment was being spent on trips and a house where she lived with another boyfriend.

That boyfriend, James Brown, turned McKeown in when he discovered she was scamming him as well by using his credit.