Chinese ‘soldier’ cons online ‘girlfriend’ out of US$218,000 with series of elaborate scams
Fraudster told woman he needed cosmetic surgery to escape an adversary and hospital treatment for a snake bite
A Chinese man who masqueraded as a member of the special forces to cheat his online “girlfriend” out of 1.5 million yuan (US$218,000) over almost a decade has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, a Chinese newspaper reported.
The con man, identified only as Li, stood trial in July, about four months after being tracked down by police in central China’s Hubei province, Modern Express reported on Tuesday.
Li and his victim, a woman surnamed Wang from Suzhou in east China’s Jiangsu province, began chatting on social media in 2007.
Wang, then in her 30s, soon became enamoured with Li’s spurious tales of his exploits in the military. So when she received a message from a man claiming to be a friend of Li’s, saying her “boyfriend” had been kidnapped by drug dealers, she was keen to help, the report said.
The friend, who also posted images of wounds to Li’s arms, supposedly inflicted by his captors, asked Wang to transfer 10,000 yuan to his bank account to cover the ransom demand, which she did.