A Croydon family already devastated with grief over the murder of a loved one just days before Christmas last year are now outraged after a GoFundMe scam saw a chancer make off with more than £11,000 donated by the public in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
Michael Afonso was one of 11 murder victims in Croydon in 2023.
He died after what the police described as a “brutal attack” by a group of men on Mayfield Crescent, Thornton Heath, late on December 19. The suspects drove off in the grey Vauxhall Grand X Elite car Afonso had been driving. Paramedics rushed to the scene but were unable to save him.
Michael Afonso was 27 at the time of his death. He left a widow and a young son.
In the days after the murder, someone describing himself as a family friend set up a GoFundMe campaign, appealing to the public to donate some Christmas cash to help pay for Afonso’s body to be flown to his native Portugal for his funeral. By early in the New Year, more than £10,000 had been collected on the online money-raising site.
Murdered: Michael Afonso, killed just days before Christmas 2023
But now, according to an investigation by the Daily Mirror, all that money has gone, and Afonso’s heartbroken family say that they barely knew the person behind the GoFundMe appeal.
On the GoFundMe page, which the dead man’s family say was set up without their prior knowledge or permission, Ricardo Ferreira claimed he was Afonso’s cousin. He called the fundraiser “Take Michael Afonso’s body back home to rest”.
The Mirror has interviewed Afonso’s niece, Jessica, who said that when the family asked for the money, the organiser became “distant” and started to make “excuses”.
In total, after processing fees, the amount available to withdraw was £11,357.33. The monies raised included a single donation of £6,500 from “a famous rapper”.
The GoFundMe fundraiser account was emptied of £11,017.98.
According to the newspaper, Ferreira has never responded to requests for comment.
At the turn of the year, the police quickly made three arrests in connection with Afonso’s murder. But now, the police’s specialist fraud unti say they are not investigating the alleged fraud by someone who has profited from the man’s death.
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau – or Action Fraud – runs from the City of London Police, and they confirmed to the newspaper that they had received a crime report but that “it has not been passed to a police force for investigation at this time”.
The police said: “With more than 850,000 reports coming into the NFIB each year, not all cases can be passed on for further investigation. Reports are assessed against a number of criteria which include the vulnerability of the victim.
“However, the reports most likely to present an investigative opportunity for local police forces, those where a crime is ongoing and those that present the greatest threat and harm to the victim or victims concerned, are the ones that are prioritised.”
The family calls the scam “fraud to the worst extent”.
Afonso’s niece Jessica told the Mirror: “My uncle was stabbed on December 19, two days afterwards the fundraiser was created by this person. None of us gave permission to him, he already set up the GoFundMe.
“We’ve known this person for a long time so we didn’t think anything of it. A famous rapper deposited £6,500 into the GoFundMe, then it reached up to £10,000… When it got closer to the time, my mum asked him to contact GoFundMe to withdraw the money. He kept giving excuses.”
The family says that it has been forced to borrow money to pay for Michael Afonso’s funeral.
They claim that Ferreira visited her family home on December 27, the same day that £1,819.63 was withdrawn from the fundraiser. The family obtained a document from GoFundMe that showed all the withdrawals from the account after the fundraiser was launched, including a single withdrawal of £6,392.78 on January 3 this year.
Opportunity knocks: the list of withdrawals from the fundraiser, as provided by GoFundMe
GoFundMe has been cooperative with the family, and clearly has some evidence that might prove essential in any police investigation.
In the murder case, Omari Peat, of Mitcham, Zac Baako, of no fixed address, and John Budal, from Pollards Hill, have all been charged with the murder of Michael Afonso and appeared in court. They remain on remand, awaiting trial.
The Metropolitan Police said: “The investigation into the murder of 27-year-old Michael Patrick Afonso Peixoto remains ongoing.”
Read more: Croydon in 2023: London’s borough with most murder victims
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
I assume the police are not pursuing this because their experience with the Law is that there are lots of technicalities and loopholes with which a good barrister can help his client evade justice.
Fortunately, the conservatives are focusing on bring to legistlation really high priority laws such as the Pet Abduction Act and the Smokefree Generation Act.
That’s how we know we have a government doing everything in it’s power to improve law and order. The article did not say whether there is a new gofundme we can donate to ?