Man admits conning girlfriend he never met out of US$60,000 in Chinese online dating fraud
Woman went to police after four-year deception in which she was persuaded to lend money to man who used a false name
A man has admitted to fraud after a victim of an online dating scam handed over thousands of yuan to a boyfriend she had never met, according to a news website.
The woman, identified only by her surname Chen, from Yancheng city in northeastern Jiangsu province, met her online boyfriend in March 2014 via a popular dating website, reported the Modern Express.
Although she never met the man in person, Chen was scammed into lending him 380,000 yuan (US$60,500) over the course of four years.
Going by the name of Zhou Weichen, the man claimed to be a music editor at CCTV, China’s main state-owned television broadcaster. He also claimed to own a property in Beijing, and that his father worked for Chinese oil and gas company PetroChina. Throughout the time they spoke, he asked Chen to lend him varying amounts of money.