Dongguan party boss Liu Zhigeng has taken the unusual step of giving out a personal cellphone number in a bid to expose swindlers who have targeted city government guests.
The most recent targets were Hong Kong representatives who attended the Dongguan Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference last week, according to a report in Saturday's Southern Metropolis Daily.
Hong Kong representative Cheung Jing-shan told the paper he received a phone call several weeks ago from someone who claimed to be Dongguan's 'city leader'.
'He started off by discussing the conference agenda with me, then out of the blue, he said, 'Would you please wire transfer me several thousand yuan as a donation',' Mr Cheung said.
'I said to myself: 'Wait a minute, I know the city leader and he speaks Cantonese. But the guy who's on the other end of the telephone line is all in Putonghua'.' Mr Cheung immediately called Mr Liu and confirmed the call was bogus.
Similar swindle attempts - although not necessarily by the same person - were made against Mai Jian-wen and Zhong Han-qiang, both Hong Kong representatives who attended the meeting in Dongguan, the paper said.