3 Chinese women send ‘shared’ boyfriend to jail after he stole US$15,000 from them, then become pals, holiday together
- The women soon became good friends and ended up taking an overseas holiday together as a way of dealing with their experiences
- The scammer claimed he was about to break up with one woman and the others were just for casual sex
A Shanghai man has received two years and six months in jail after three women he conned 100,000 yuan (US$15,000) from while posing as a love interest discovered the truth and worked together to expose him.
The women, who became friends during the police investigation and subsequent court case, went on an overseas trip together one month after sending their “shared” boyfriend to jail, Shanghai TV reported.
On February 10, the three women went to a police station in Shanghai’s Yangpu District to report He Shiwei of deceiving them all into lending him money that was never repaid. The women had only met each other the day before.
On the evening of February 9, He and one of the women, Chen Hong, went out for dinner, and after drinking lots of alcohol, they returned to Chen’s home, where He fell asleep.
While He was asleep, Chen, who had become suspicious, checked his mobile phone and found multiple messages from another woman asking him why he was rejecting her calls.
Chen contacted the woman and spoke with her. The other woman, Xiao Fan, said she lived with He, who usually came to her flat to sleep every night.
“I was so outraged! My hands were shaking,” Chen said.
Chen and Xiao found that He had told both of them he wanted to marry them.
Chen received more bad news on the morning of February 10 when a third woman, named Zhao Lin, contacted her, saying she was also He’s girlfriend.
Zhao got Chen’s contact details from her cousin who told Zhao that He was the boyfriend of a friend of his who happened to be Chen.
“It means that He has more than one girlfriend,” Zhao said.
On the afternoon of February 10, when He woke up, Chen confronted him and demanded the return of her money but he refused. Within hours all three women were at the police station making statements.
The trio recounted their experiences to the police and realised they had been sharing the same boyfriend; He had been dating Zhao since 2021, Xiao since June 2022 and Chen since October 2022.
He borrowed 12,000 yuan (US$1,700) from Zhao, 39,000 yuan from Chen and 44,000 yuan from Xiao, none of which had been repaid.
He told the women that he worked at a China Mobile retail outlet, but when two of them went to see him last year, and he was not there, he lied and said he was working at another branch temporarily.
The police later found that He quit the company in 2020 and had not found stable employment since. He used the money from the women to pay his debts.
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When asked by the police about his complicated relationships, He only acknowledged that Chen was his girlfriend but said he was planning to break up with her on February 10. The couple previously planned to register for marriage on February 14, Valentine’s Day.
“Zhao, she is just my casual sexual partner. Chen, although I cohabited with her for a long time, we won’t have a future because she has a husband,” He claimed.
“Perhaps you think I live an abnormal life. But it is a common phenomenon in this society. I’ve seen too many such cases and don’t value love or sex,” He said.
He, who has been divorced twice, added: “I am good at pleasing girls, and I am handsome. My previous jobs enabled me to earn decent incomes.”
Chen said she felt badly hurt by her experience with He.
“He is the first man who made me aspire to marry. However, he turned out to be an unreliable person,” she said. “I lost 2.5kg in the first three days after learning the truth. I didn’t eat or drink and couldn’t sleep.”
Xiao said: “It’s so unfair to me. I have devoted so much to him.”
When Chen said she wanted to travel to help deal with her sadness and move on, the other two women expressed a similar interest.
At the end of March, when a police officer called them with an update on the case’s progress, he found the three women were on holiday abroad together.
“We got along well during the trip. We were discussing a question every day such as – what virtue or ability did he have to enthral all of us? This scenario was so fun,” Chen said.
“All three of us are pure and good-hearted. It shows that He is good at judging people, so he managed to cheat money from us,” she said.
Xiao said: “He reads many books in his spare time, especially psychology ones. He is a good pickup artist.”
