Revealed: The UK witch doctors exploiting sick Brits by charging £3,000 to 'cure cancer'

We lift the lid on this shocking trade that takes advantage of desperate people who feel they have nowhere else to turn

“Witch doctors” are exploiting sick and vulnerable Brits claiming they can cure illnesses such as cancer for tens of thousands of pounds.The “healers” promise to banish disease, fix fertility problems and overcome mental health issues – for a large sum.

The Sunday Mirror can now lift the lid on this shocking trade that takes advantage of desperate people who feel they have nowhere else to turn.

Our undercover investigators contacted “healers” advertising online after one leafleted homes claiming to be able to solve any health problem in 48 hours.
One “healer”, Fatt-ha Grami from Streatham Hill, South London, professed in his Gumtree advert he was “born gifted” and could solve problems “impossible to be solved” including illness and disease.
Our reporter visited him posing as a woman with a cancerous brain tumour. He told us it had grown as a result of black magic.
Inside his flat – kitted out with a flatscreen TV and several laptops – Grami asked our investigator for her name, mother’s name and date of birth before muttering an ­incantation while carrying out a ritual with a string of tribal beads.
Half an hour later, as incense filled the room and cable TV played in the background, Grami – wearing a floor-length hooded cloak – revealed his diagnosis.
“There is a way to help you make the cancer disappear. But there is no way for the tumour. Maybe you need an operation for that.”
Putting on pressure, he continued: “You cannot escape from it now. After the cure, we need to do a protection with you.”
Grami then explained the cancer was caused by eating sauce from tinned baked beans and could be cured by a combination of spiritual protection, African medicine – and lots of cash.

Witch Doctor in Liverpool Reza Moussavi

He said: “This is going to cost you a lot of money. £3,300. But in 24 days it will be gone. Even in two weeks’ time you go to the hospital and they check your head and you see the difference. I’m very confident.”He suggested ­hesitating would result in a price hike. “Because it’s new, the cancer is not very strong but it can spread. Then we can still do something but it can be harder and cost more.”
After paying £100 in cash for a DHL delivery of the medicine from Africa, we were told to return the next day to collect the first dose of the concoction.
Grami handed over a bag of leaves and twigs for another £200 cash, promising the remainder of the “treatment” for a further £3,000.
Our reporter was told to boil the twigs into a tea before discarding the remnants in a public bin to release the spirits.
He claimed he would meanwhile carry out spiritual work from his flat.
Shockingly he told our reporter not to tell her GP he was helping her because it was “against the rules of doctors”.
Tonight, Grami said: “The treatment cost so much because you have to arrange a sacrifice in Africa to get rid of the illness. A cow or a camel. For cancer, a camel.

“I think I help people so I believe it. If I can’t do it here I will do it in the US. I have to do it. But if I can’t do here I will move.”

There is no single specific law against the trade and prosecutions are rare.
But convictions have been secured by trading standards legislation and the Cancer Act – which bans any ­advertisement claiming to offer cures for cancer.
Our investigation found witch doctors’ claims range from offers to lift curses against poor fortune and ill health to supplying potions for epilepsy, autism, leukaemia and sexual impotence. One boasted he could give an infertile couple a baby for £5,000.
When we rang witch doctor Reza Moussavi from ­Liverpool, who owns the website Remove Black Magic Jadoo, he bragged: “You come here and 100 per cent you will see the results. You go to hospital, they do something and you won’t see the result.
“Because it comes from the curse you can’t cure it medically.”
Within 30 minutes of our initial phone consultation Moussavi rang back claiming he had done a reading from the fabricated details we provided and could cure a curse causing the cancer for £500.
He said: “This cancer started about two years ago. A family friend has done some kind of the black magic.
“It’s a very strong magic I need to remove. Medicine doesn’t work. Cancer isn’t silly, it’s a matter of your life. I really want to help you, it’s not about money.
“My prices to remove this magic start from £500 and it goes up and up but I want to help you so I will charge the lowest price.”
Moussavi arranged to meet our ­undercover investigator in a makeshift office in a Merseyside business park.
He said: “You can go to the doctor but he won’t help you because of the black magic. I can get rid of that – but you have to pay. Many people can put black magic on you but not just anyone can reverse it. You need a specialist. You need me.”
The businessman, who arrived in a new 4x4, claimed his work was not about financial gain but said he hates public transport and only travels first class.
At the meeting he was less forthcoming about his healing powers saying: “I am not God but I hope I will help you.”
In the room – empty except for a large wooden desk and a leather sofa – our investigator was ordered to drink “holy water” from an ancient dish, before going to the toilet to “cleanse herself”.
She then sat on a chair in the incense-filled room and was told to put her hand on the brain tumour, close her eyes and open her mouth as Moussavi circled her, chanting in Arabic and blowing hard on her head and in her mouth.
During the bizarre episode, his phone rang with a regular customer and he performed a ritual by chanting into his mobile and blowing on it. He told us: “I had to help her. She is in trouble. She has health problems, depression.”
Moussavi handed our investigator three pieces of paper, covered in prayers and told her to burn one and inhale the smoke, keep one in her bra and a third to dip in water before burying it.
She was told that after 10 days, she would start to get better. Although he couldn’t say when, he said: “100 per cent you will get the result.”

‘They prey on the vulnerable and trick them for a fortune’

Predators: Witch doctors

Experts claim the voodoo medicine industry is booming with thousands of so-called “healers” in Britain luring tens of thousands of people into their net every year.
As well as making false claims about cures, they fleece their vulnerable clients of huge chunks of cash.
Criminologist and police expert witness Dr Richard Hoskins, said: “The money being paid by some people is eye-watering. We’re talking
of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“The people doing this are very manipulative and very clever. They know how to coerce others out of money.
“And they also know how to start hooking them in through veiled threats, especially when those threats are spiritual.”
Dr Hoskins, who wrote the best-selling book The Boy In The River about the ritual murder of children in London, stressed that people from all walks of life can fall prey to the “witch doctors”.
He added: “In some cases I’ve seen they are very successful, white, middle-class clients. The main thing is that they’re vulnerable.”
Dr Hoskins, who has consulted on more than 100 criminal cases including the witchcraft-based torture and murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie, called for tighter restrictions on the bogus doctors.
He said: “It’s difficult as it’s a very grey area. There’s no regulation. And, as ever, it is vulnerable people who are suffering.”

Nailing bogus healers hit by legal hurdles

It is difficult to convict those who practise “voodoo medicine” because no single law exists to prohibit it.
But prosecutions are possible under a number of different laws.
For example, Adrian Pengelly, from Leominster, Herefordshire, pleaded guilty in 2010 to three charges under the Cancer Act after claiming without any medical qualifications to be able to cure a range of ailments, including cancer, by transmitting healing energy through his hands.
He was fined £600 and ordered to pay £2,000 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.
Bogus healer Niem Mohammed, from Wilmslow, Cheshire, conned clients out of £800,000 by claiming he could break black magic spells.
He was convicted of 11 counts of fraud, and was jailed for 18 months in 2010.