Woman loses 1.8m yuan in sham marriage deal

Prosecutors in Putuo District have approved the arrest of three men after a woman in her 70s alleged she had been cheated out of more than 1.8 million yuan (US$257,400) in a scam involving a sham marriage.

They said a man surnamed Yu, who had worked for an investment company, had gathered a group of clients in 2015. The woman, Zhang, was among them.

Zhang is said to have treated Yu like a son and had bought many financial products from him because of his friendly attitude. Sometimes, he even visited Zhang at home and made a big fuss of her, prosecutors said.

In 2017, Zhang told Yu she had lost more than 400,000 yuan she had invested with another company. It is alleged he told Zhang he would help her make money and introduced her to more financial products.

When Zhang said she had no money to invest, he advised her to sell her house. Persuaded by Yu and two colleagues, Gao and Dai, Zhang decided to sell but was worried about what would happen to her hukou, or registered residency.

To solve the problem, Zhang married Gao in 2017 so she could register her residency at his house. 

Zhang signed a million yuan investment contract with the three men and gave them 920,000 yuan after the house was sold.

However, they didn’t invest the money, prosecutors allege, instead spending it on themselves and gambling. After Yu persuaded her to transfer another 900,000 yuan, he gave her thousands of yuan every month to make her believe everything was going well, it is alleged.

Prosecutors said that in April of 2018, the men admitted they had lost all her money but would give her their houses as compensation. However, several months later, Zhang lost contact with them and called the police.