A man in central China has been arrested for secretly dating 19 women at the same time and swindling them out of their savings.
Police in Zhengzhou, Henan province started investigating after several single women reported that they were scammed by a man posing as a ‘rich kid’ online.
The suspect has fathered children with four of the victims while two others have recently become pregnant, Chinese media reported.
Following investigations, police in the Zhengdong district located the suspect, surnamed Tan, on March 22 and detained him.
After losing his job as a an alcohol promoter in 2017, the man came up with the plan to date women while pretending to be a rich kid online, according to Henan newspaper Dahe Daily in a report yesterday.
He would wear fake designer clothing and carry ‘expensive’ bags during their dates, and had been in a relationship with 19 women over two years.
One of the victims, surnamed Wang, had no idea that her lover was a scammer until their child was born.
She had met Tan on messaging app WeChat in June 2017 and quickly ‘fell in love’ with him, who had told her that his parents are senior officials and would shower her with lavish gifts every time they met.
She would transfer several hundred thousands of yuan to him without suspecting anything. He had also taken her car with him, she told reporters.
Wang then found out she was pregnant last January, but Tan didn’t mention anything about them getting married.
After giving birth to a baby boy in September, Tan completely disappeared ‘without a trace’ and she couldn’t find him anywhere.
‘He was always wearing designer clothing and he seemed so cultured,’ she said. ‘He was always very sweet to me.’
The woman said he even talked her out of getting an abortion when she told him she was pregnant with his child.
Another victim, surnamed Yang, who also met the man on WeChat, was scammed out of 150,000 yuan (£17,000) in total. Tan had told her that he was a postgraduate student and did not have a close relationship with his parents.
Last March, Tan proposed to her with a fake five-carat diamond ring, prompting her to lend him money for his ‘business’.
At the police station, the love cheat admitted to scamming the women out of their money.
‘I really couldn’t afford the luxury items, the fake ones were quite good,’ he told reporters.
The case is under further investigation, the report said. So far, 17 victims have filed police reports and the remaining two have yet to come forward.