scam – Pain In The Bud

It’s been 20 years since a con artist invented a breed of cat, claimed it was hypoallergenic, and charged unsuspecting customers tens of thousands of dollars only to deliver felines of a different breed.

Yet you wouldn’t know that by all the articles, listicles and social media posts by unscrupulous news brands and pet sites that continue to spread misinformation about the so-called “Ashera cat.”

Because of the overwhelming amount of misinformation about the fabulated breed on the web, even prominent AI models, like those integrated with search engines, tell users the Ashera is legitimate or claim there’s “controversy” about it, as if the question of whether it’s real or not is still up in the air.

The sources of misinformation include a popular YouTube channel that praises the Ashera, calling it “basically a Ferrari with fur.” Cat information sites like Catster and KittyNook describe it as if it’s real, while dozens of pages on Facebook and Instagram claim to sell Ashera cats. Even articles on major platforms like MSN and Yahoo discuss the Ashera as if it’s a legitimate breed.

Spotted Ashera cat standing on a dark sofa in a living room — Catster’s editors know the Ashera is a scam, and they still run these stories.

The ubiquity of “for sale” posts proves that scammers are still benefiting from the confusion created by the media stories repeating long-debunked claims. We last wrote about the Ashera in early 2024, and the situation hasn’t improved. If anything, there are even more bad actors trying to rip people off by promising them genetically engineered miracle cats.

For the sake of being as blunt as possible so there can be no ambiguity:

The Ashera does not exist. It has never existed.

The man who “created” the Ashera, Simon Brodie, is a British national with a long criminal history. He fled and changed his name when his scam was exposed.

Not a single person who paid him received an “Ashera cat.”

Brodie launched his Ashera cat scam in the early 2000s by fooling several major media outlets into positively covering his fake business. He presented himself as a tech CEO and geneticist whose lab created the breed. The Ashera was developed, he claimed, by manipulating the DNA of existing cat breeds, removing the mechanisms that create allergens.

It’s worth noting that even now in 2026, no genetics company has done so, and geneticists still do not understand what function the relevant protein (Fel d 1) plays in feline biology. They know it produces allergens, but that’s a side effect on humans, not its purpose. Using gene-editing technology like CRISPR to snip out the relevant genetic code could have catastrophic consequences for the felines whose DNA is edited.

Yet reporters for major news outlets, including the New York Times, Time magazine, Reuters and National Geographic, didn’t question Brodie’s claims. The positive coverage in national and international publications vaulted Brodie’s scam to new heights, bringing him new customers.

It wasn’t until angry customers went to ABC News that the scam was fully exposed. DNA tests by an independent lab concluded so-called Ashera cats weren’t genetically engineered and didn’t have lower levels of allergens.

Brodie’s claims of an allergen-free cat were especially beguiling to people who’d always wanted a pet cat but found their allergies were too severe.

“I don’t think any cat is worth $4,000,” a customer named Mike Sela told Columbia Journalism review, “but this seemed like a magical opportunity, especially with parents trying to get something for kids. You never thought you could get a cat and this is your chance.”

Bengal cat with green eyes lying on a wooden surface against a dark background — So-called “Ashera cats” are usually Bengal cats drop-shipped from breeders. While Bengal kittens typically command between $1,500 and $3,000, drop-shippers charge tens of thousands for supposedly hypoallergenic “Ashera cats.”

Brodie was neither a tech CEO nor a geneticist. He had no employees and his lab didn’t exist. He ran his “high tech startup” from his apartment, charging customers up to $100,000 for Ashera cats and drop-shipping them Bengal and Savannah cats from breeders.

Despite claims to the contrary by many other breeders, hypoallergenic cats aren’t a thing. All breeds of cat have the Fel d 1 protein, which is found in saliva and skin glands. You can’t buy an “allergy free” cat, and there is no governing body that certifies a cat as allergy free or “less allergenic.”

This isn’t difficult information to dig up. All it requires is basic due diligence and critical thinking.

Yet both are in short supply in a world where people just copy existing news articles, shifting a few words around to fool plagiarism detectors, or tell AI to write the stories for them.

To the owners and editors of sites still treating the Ashera cat and similar scams as real: You are serving the interests of scammers who separate people from their hard-earned money in exchange for hypoallergenic cats that do not exist. You’re doing real harm out of laziness or ambivalence. Please stop.

Spotted tabby cat lying down with its front paws extended. — Savannah cats are also sold as Asheras. Credit: Pexels

To people who are considering purchasing an Ashera, please don’t! The lure of a supposedly allergen-free cat is strong, as is the idea of a unique breed that looks like a wildcat.

Unfortunately that’s not what you’ll get in exchange from your money. You’ll get a regular fourth- or fifth-generation Bengal or Savannah that you could have purchased directly from the breeder for a fraction of the price.

Why pay for a cat anyway? There are literally hundreds of thousands of cats out there right now who need homes, and contrary to what breeders claim, those cats aren’t lower quality and don’t have anything wrong with them. In fact, domestic shorthairs are healthier than so-called pedigree cats in every respect and are not predisposed to the diseases and other health problems that plague breeds. They live longer, healthier, happier lives, and they’re just as loving.

Scammers continue posting ads and maintaining fake breeder pages because the scam still works, and the scam still works because supposedly trustworthy pet news sites tell readers the Ashera is real. They need to stop. After 20 years, haven’t enough people been scammed?

Ashera cat listings found on Nov. 10, 2026. The ads for people looking to rehome Asheras may be from people who were told the cats they purchased were Asheras, or they may be another form of scam. There were more than a dozen current “Asheras” listed for sale, each for at least $10,000.

Pet site listicles name the Ashera cat as “luxurious,” one of the most expensive and rare breeds ever. Videos show surprisingly large, exotic-looking felines with leopard-like rosettes and a calm demeanor.

In media reports a man named Simon Brodie talks the breed up, presenting himself as the CEO of a biotechnology company that “developed” the Ashera through careful genetic manipulation, selecting only the most positive traits. For a few thousand dollars more, Brodie promises, they come in hypoallergenic versions too.

Brodie often sounded like he was describing the newest iteration of a tech product rather than a cat, calling the Ashera “a status symbol” and listing its optional features the way a car salesman talks about leather and heated seats.

“It’s exotic, but under the skin it’s a domestic house cat, very easy to take care of and extremely friendly,” he told Reuters. “Everybody has thought at one time, wouldn’t it be great to have a leopard at home, or a tiger? Obviously, you can’t and this is about the nearest thing to it.”

Brodie conjured images of engineers poring over genetic data and working with gene-editing equipment in a laboratory to create the perfect pet.

“Anybody can throw the ingredients in, but unless you know what ingredients are the best ingredients in the best percentages, you’re not going to produce the same final product,” Brodie told the U.K. wire service.

The problem? The Ashera doesn’t actually exist, and there’s no evidence Brodie has ever been in a lab, let alone spearheaded the creation of a new breed of feline.

Not an Ashera cat — A Savannah cat with clear Serval lineage is shown as an example of an “Ashera cat” on several websites about the fictional breed.

Sadly, people might not realize that right away because of the publish-now, verify-never nature of web publications. Catster maintains a current page for the “breed,” citing its “outstanding lineage” and its supposed status as “one of the rarest and most expensive cats in the world,” potentially setting back its owners $100,000 or more per cat. You have to scroll down before the site warns about the “controversy and skepticism regarding the breed’s origins,” as if there’s still a debate whether the Ashera is a real breed.

Sites I’d rather not link to include the Ashera in their lists of “most exclusive” and “rare” breeds, and recent Reddit threads claim their price owes partly to their rarity because the company “only breeds about 100 cats a year.” When’s the last time you heard cats didn’t breed enough?

There are even “Ashera cat communities” designed to make it look like there are large online groups of happy owners, and Youtube channels featuring videos of Savannahs labeled as Asheras.

A sketchy operation

But dig a little deeper and you’ll find the truth. The Savannah Cat Association calls the Ashera a hoax, says the cats are Savannahs with fancy marketing, and details experiences people have allegedly had with Brodie. His company appeared to be a one-man operation with a voice mailbox, and people who purchased the pets said they were told to wire down payments to an account in the United Arab Emirates.

There are even claims Brodie was drop-shipping the cats, with customers saying they were delivered directly from an Oklahoma breeder of Savannahs.

And the people who saw an opportunity to have a pet cat despite severe allergies? They weren’t happy either, even those who negotiated deep “discounts” with Brodie.

A group of angry customers who were promised hypoallergenic pets contacted ABC News, whose Lookout team enlisted the help of a biotechnology company to test cats purchased from Allerca, Brodie’s company. The tests showed the Ashera cats had the same amount of Fel d 1, the primary allergen in feline saliva, as the typical cat and could find no evidence of Brodie’s claims that he’d engineered an exotic cat sans allergens.

CJR took mainstream and legacy press outlets to task for reporting uncritically on Brodie’s claims despite the lack of any documentation, peer-review studies proving gene-edited hypoallergenic cats are possible, and for a complete lack of due diligence on the man himself. Per CJR:

“What Time, National Geographic, and other major outlets, including The New York Times, missed was that Brodie has no background in genetics—but he does have a well-recorded background in running scams. He was arrested in England, his native country, for selling shares in a non-existent hot-air balloon company. In the United States, he has left a wake of evictions, unpaid loans, and suits by unpaid employees. One judgment against him that stands out is by a company called Felix Pets, founded about a year before Allerca with the same goal of breeding hypoallergenic cats by eliminating the Fel-D-1 gene.”

Indeed, as the complaints piled up and Brodie’s deceptions began to catch up with him, the San Diego Union Tribune reported Allerca had been evicted from its “offices” — Brodie’s home address.

Ashera cats scam — A listing for an Ashera cat and a second listing for Ashera kittens, bottom left.

News stories say Brodie has changed his name numerous times and if he’s still out there, he’s almost certainly not Simon Brodie anymore. But the Ashera cat scam isn’t dead.

We found dozens of sites offering “Ashera kittens,” and online marketplaces for animals still have regularly-updated listings from people claiming they’re selling “genuine” Ashera cats in 2024. There’s also at least one group claiming they’re “officially licensed Ashera cat breeders,” touting a lofty “mission” not only of providing cats for people with allergies, but also “preserving exotic wildlife.”

The myth of hypoallergenic cats

Although there have been recent efforts to neutralize Fel d 1, they come from actual scientists who have published their work for peer review, or from public pet food companies that have paired with scientists to create kibble they claim reduces the Fel d 1 allergen in cats who eat it. They’re also focused on attacking the protein, not breeding or creating cats that lack it in the first place.

People with allergies should understand that despite what they may read online, hypoallergenic cats do not exist. No one has been able to “engineer” a feline without the Fel d 1 protein.

There’s serious debate among geneticists about whether trying it is ethical, as no one knows exactly what function Fel d 1 serves or what the potential consequences may be for editing it out of feline genetic code.

So if you’re looking for a “luxury cat” or you just want a cat that won’t trigger your allergies, beware before you’re separated from your hard-earned cash. As always, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.