Coco currently has 60k followers on her private instagram and this is her bio:
As a bit of background into Coco, her story is that she was born and raised in Germany. Her real name is Sandra-Renata Ruff. All of this info comes from Coco herself, so I am wondering how true it is?
According to her, her family trafficked her from her childhood until November 2, 2009 when she ran away from home to the sound of Celine Dion. She told Daily Herald, “I went to the door, put in my iPod, put on ‘Taking Chances’ by Celine Dion then I just ran.”
This info is from an article featuring Coco from deseret.com:
Coco Berthmann was born and raised in Germany, where she said her family
trafficked her for the first 15 years of her life until she ran away from
home.
Now, she works to address misconceptions about human trafficking.
Like Frazier, Berthmann said she was “right in the middle of everyone”
while her abuse was happening. She wasn’t locked up, the way some people
picture victims of trafficking. She took horseback riding and dance lessons and
was around others.
It wasn’t until she watched an American TV show that she started seeing
similarities between her home and things she saw on the show, and started
realizing “something’s wrong,” Berthmann recalled.
In 2016, while volunteering with refugees in American, she recalled the
abusive behavior patterns she’d experienced in her family. She said if she
would’ve recognized them as a child, she would’ve escaped earlier.
Coco has said she joined an au pair agency which is how she ended up moving to the USA in Feb 2017. She settled in Utah.
From 2018 to 2021, she attended Ensign College in Salt Lake City, Utah where she earned her associate’s degree in marketing.
From September 2018 to October 2018, she worked for Lions Digital Agency in Salt lake City as a social media specialist. From October 2018 to November 2019, she worked for LDS Business College in Salt Lake City as a digital marketing program assistant.
From February 2019 to April 2020, she was an ARISE Project for Humanity board director in Salt Lake City.
Most of Coco’s websites have been taken down now but you can still view parts of them via the wayback machine.
She did have a website for the Coco Berthmann Scholarship which said :
Coco Berthmann is Founder and President of the Coco Berthmann Scholarship Fund. She was born and raised in Germany. She is a counter-trafficking specialist and aspiring international civil-rights attorney. Coco enables all segments of society to fight human-trafficking by educating and speaking internationally and teaching law enforcement, first responders, forensic staff, and communities about the horrific reality of human-trafficking.
As a survivor, Coco made it her personal aim to free other victims out of the hands of traffickers.
Her unique experience of bondage and escape from such heinous crimes, have enabled multiple dignitaries free and rescue enslaved victims.
And
Coco Berthmann, and Aros Artimus met in 2015 while both of them presented as speakers at an event. Aros, an educator and founder of the Adaptive Operation, an organization that performs rescue missions for human trafficking survivors and also the parent organization to the Coco Berthmann Scholarship Fund. Aros invited Coco in 2019 to one of his training sessions to enable Coco to join rescue missions. Adaptive Operations also supports Global Education Philanthropists and it’s founder Cammy Bowker, who work in the prevention of Human-Trafficking by providing education resources to vulnerable children in risk areas world-wide.
Aros, Cammy, and Coco decided to combine forces, in order to fight Human Trafficking in a three way aproach. By building the Coco Berthmann Scholarship Fund, Counter Human trafficking will now be aproached with:
1) Prevention offered by Global Education Philanthropist
2) Rescues provided by Adaptive Operations, and
3) healing and empowerment for survivor provided with the Scholarship Fund offered to Survivors world wide.
We believe in a world that comes together hand in hand to fight the greatest human right challenge of this history.
We believe in fighting Human Trafficking one dipolma at a time. (Dipolma and all other typos above are direct copy from their website)
So this background kind of gives you an idea about Coco and what she has been doing with her life. Seems like an upstanding citizen, right?
In January 2022, Coco allegedly told her friend Amy Bowler that she had stage 3 mantle cell lymphoma cancer.
On February 3, 2022, Amy started a GoFundMe account for Coco, which raised more than $10,000 as of February 17, 2022. It has now been taken down, although Coco does still have it linked in her insta bio.
Amy started the GFM because Coco been a “source of hope” to others and dedicated her life to “fighting” for other people. Amy asked people to donate to the GoFundMe page to show “how much we appreciate her.”
According to the GFM, stage 3 mantle cell lymphoma is an “aggressive” cancer with an average survival rate of about 30 percent.
Coco claimed she was receiving treatments at Huntsman Cancer Institute along with specialists in Chicago and Alaska.
Authorities began looking into Coco’s claims following a tip off. The complaint claimed that Berthmann was a “habitual liar” and that the 28-year-old also allegedly falsely claimed that her mother sent people to the United States to kill her.
Coco told South Jordan police that she had been treated at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, but left because she couldn’t be treated with chemotherapy, according to news agency KSL. An investigation, which included warrants being served at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, determined she was never a patient at the facility, an affidavit obtained by KSL said.
Coco allegedly told police she would email them medical records substantiating her diagnosis, but she failed to ever send anything through. When police then confronted her, she ‘ changed her story’. She said she was actively seeking treatment at Intermountain Medical Center.
On February 16, 2022 Coco was booked into Salt Lake County Jail for an investigation into alleged communications fraud relating to an alleged faked cancer diagnosis.
After she was booked by police, Coco claimed she possessed the correct medical documents in a specific drawer, but when authorities searched the location, they only found documents relating to taxes, vehicles, school and other personal records.
As of March 1, 2022, there are no further updates on Coco’s case. This blog will be updated when more information is available.