Baby Funeral Scam: 3 Arrested for Bilking Kind Strangers

Three Lancaster women who profited from the kindness of strangers have been arrested for running a donation scheme involving a baby's funeral. The women were standing on the street corner asking for money to help pay for the funeral of an 18-month-old boy.

The hitch? The boy was alive and well, investigators discovered. He turned out to be the nephew of one of the three women involved in soliciting the donations, reports KTLA.

The scammers had brought in $500 by the time they were found out. They confessed during questioning there was no dead baby needing burial. The truth could perhaps be a murky off-shoot of the scam: "One of the women told police that they were actually trying to raise money to buy a headstone for her mother, who died a few years ago, but had only a simple burial."

A similar scheme also led to arrests in Fontana last month.