A 34-year-old woman from Hebei, China, surnamed Lu, was recently sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding a man of over 320,000 yuan (approximately RM210,000) under the pretense of marriage. Lu, who was deeply in debt from gambling—owing around 400,000 to 500,000 yuan—hatched a plan to use a fake marriage to obtain money to pay off her creditors.
According to Red Star News, Lu met a man surnamed Zhao through a matchmaker in November 2023. She convinced Zhao of her intentions to marry and even went as far as hiring strangers to pose as her parents during marriage discussions. Zhao’s family believed her, and the couple held a wedding in January 2024.
Shockingly, just one day after the wedding, Lu left Zhao’s home, claiming she needed to go to Tianjin to collect a debt. She never returned. Over the following months, Lu continued to deceive Zhao by making up stories about needing money to rent a warehouse, host a banquet, and settle debts for a hotpot restaurant in Tianjin. In total, she managed to scam over 320,000 yuan from him.
During this period, Lu was not only lying to Zhao but also engaging in intimate relationships with other men. Authorities later discovered that she was pregnant with another man’s child.
Lu was arrested on April 13, 2024, and charged with fraud. The court found that she had fabricated facts with the intention of illegally obtaining large sums of money, constituting criminal fraud. Although Lu returned 48,000 yuan to the victim after her arrest, the court sentenced her to five years in prison and imposed a 50,000 yuan fine.
Lu appealed the sentence, but the Handan Intermediate People’s Court upheld the original ruling in May, stating that the initial judgment had already considered her partial repayment and showed leniency accordingly.
