IT IS upsetting enough to be dumped by your husband, but to be dumped without knowing about it is adding insult to injury. The Oriental Daily reports that a senior Shenzhen cadre persuaded his wife's sister to impersonate his wife of 15 years in court to obtain a divorce. The man, who was having an affair with a younger woman, talked his sister-in-law into playing along by promising to give her son a good job.
Unaware she was no longer married, the cadre's ex-wife continued to make soup for him which their daughter would take to his workplace. The wife was devastated to hear of her divorce from her father-in-law and has filed a complaint with the government about her former husband's fraudulent behaviour and abuse of power.
debt of honour A FARMER in Hunan province recently made a fortune out of an IOU note issued by the Red Army 63 years ago. According to Ming Pao, the 57-year-old peasant found a rusty box in the wall of his ancestral house when pulling it down recently. Inside was a receipt given to his grandfather for a loan he made the Red Army during the 12,000 kilometre Long March in the 1930s. The government of Rucheng county honoured the receipt and paid the farmer $15,000.
faking it FRAUD cases are increasing in Beijing, according to Ming Pao. Last month, a housewife there was approached by a man claiming to be Taiwanese who said he urgently needed to sell a piece of jade to send his father to hospital. The kind-hearted woman paid several thousand dollars for what later turned out to be a pebble.
And it's not just housewives who are falling victim to swindlers, businessmen have also been conned. One business executive recently received a call from a 'construction worker' who claimed he had dug up Ming Dynasty gold Buddha figures and coins. As authenticating evidence, he also produced a forged antique 'will'. The businessman paid $60,000 for the 'treasures' which, of course, turned out to be fakes.
the sting Hong Kong housewife Mrs Leung turned out to be a lot smarter than the men who tried to swindle her in Tsuen Wan. She was approached in the street by two men who offered her pink, cancer-killing pills at $500 each.