Woman fakes marriage to 'rich' man, defrauds relatives of $1.6 million

A Chinese woman has been sentenced to over 12 years in prison after orchestrating a fake wedding and scamming her relatives out of 12 million yuan (approximately $1.6 million).

She tricked them by presenting a man she met while hitchhiking as a wealthy real estate businessman and promised to help them purchase properties at a discount.

According to the South China Morning Post, the 40-year-old woman, identified as Meng, devised the scam after her small real estate agency collapsed in 2014, as reported by Shanghai TV.

Deceptive wedding and fake business deal

To pull off the scheme, Meng convinced a random driver she met while hitchhiking to pretend to be her wealthy husband. She claimed that her parents were pressuring her to marry due to her age. The driver, known as Jiang, agreed to the plan and even hosted the wedding.

Meng then told her relatives that Jiang was a successful real estate developer who could help them buy properties at discounted rates. She also bought a small flat worth one million yuan ($137,000) and sold it to her cousin at half the price, instructing him to say the discount was due to her and Jiang’s business connections.

Building the illusion

To further her deceit, Meng took her relatives to showrooms of new residential complexes and promised to reduce the price by 5,000 yuan ($700) per square meter, claiming a 20 per cent discount.

At least five relatives fell for the scam, handing over large sums of money, and some even sold their existing homes, believing they would soon move into better properties.

Truth comes to light

Meng stalled her relatives for years, claiming the process to secure the discounts would take time. Between 2018 and 2019, she rented flats for them and falsely told them these were the properties they had purchased. She also explained the lack of property ownership certificates by claiming they were "temporarily unavailable" due to the discount.

The truth only came out when one victim investigated and discovered that the flat she was living in was not actually hers. Another victim, Meng’s cousin, spent more than 100,000 yuan ($14,000) furnishing and decorating a rented flat.

Legal consequences

Meng was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for contract fraud. Jiang, the fake husband, was sentenced to six years in prison for signing the house-leasing contracts with the actual property owners. Meng’s cousin, who lied to other relatives, received a five-year sentence.