Chinese woman’s Rolls-Royce parking row uncovers string of crimes
- Luxury car owner who blocked hospital emergency access in criminal detention for identity papers scam
- Former driver conned her out of US$280,000
A woman who blocked a hospital’s emergency access with her Rolls-Royce two weeks ago lost more than her temper when investigators uncovered a string of unexpected crimes.
Police said on Tuesday that the woman, surnamed Shan, was in criminal detention, along with her former driver, as a result of their investigation. A third man is in administrative detention for fabricating and spreading rumours about the luxury car.
Shan, 31, was originally given five days’ administrative detention for disturbing public order after she argued with a security guard and a police officer in the August 14 incident, which went viral on social media.
The attention of China’s online community was quickly drawn to the rare licence plate on the Rolls-Royce, which blocked emergency access at the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynaecology Hospital for more than an hour.
The licence plate number on the car indicated it had originated from a government agency or from someone who was among the first in China to own a vehicle. Traffic laws ban the transfer of car plate registration, prompting online sleuths to speculate just how Shan had obtained it.
Beijing police were also interested and established a special task force which discovered that Shan had paid her former driver two million yuan (US$280,000) to transfer ownership of the Rolls-Royce to the legal owner of the plate.
Police did not say how much the transfer of the car ownership actually cost, but they were satisfied most of the two million yuan had been spent by the former driver, surnamed Guo. He is now in criminal detention for fraud.
Unfortunately for Shan, police also uncovered her involvement in a scheme to forge, alter and trade identity papers. Details of the enterprise were not disclosed by Beijing police, who said they were working with officers from the location of Shan’s registered permanent residence.
Meanwhile, a 37-year-old man was placed in administrative detention for an unspecified number of days after he fabricated a rumour that Shan’s luxury car had been put up for sale in a second-hand car dealership.