China woman stages sham wedding with ‘rich’ man, scams relatives out of US$1.6 million
Hitchhiker persuades random driver who picked her up to ‘marry’ her, lies about rented properties, says new ‘husband’ is real estate entrepreneur
A Shanghai woman staged a wedding with a man posing as a rich real estate businessman, promised to buy her relatives cheap properties and scammed 12 million yuan (US$1.6 million) out of them.
In a story that has shocked mainland social media, the 40-year-old woman, surnamed Meng, hatched a plan to con her relatives when the small real estate agency she ran failed in 2014, Shanghai TV reported in January.
In order to convince her relatives, she proposed to the driver of a random car she met while hitchhiking to stage a fake wedding, using the excuse that her parents were pushing her to get married because of her age.
The married driver, surnamed Jiang, agreed and held a wedding with her using a pseudonym.
Meng told her relatives that Jiang was responsible for the construction of many big real estate projects, and had connections in the business that allowed them to purchase new properties cheaply.
Meng then bought a small flat worth one million yuan (US$137,000), and sold it to her cousin at half the price.