'Wife' realizes 10 year marriage was fake in bizarre fraud case

A man has been detained for allegedly defrauding a person of 100,000 yuan (US$15,100) using a fake identity, police said on Tuesday.

Police in Hongkou District received a report in mid-October from the victim that his business partner, a man surnamed Liu, borrowed the money from him last year but disappeared before paying back the debt.

Police found that Liu was probably a fake identity, but soon managed to locate the suspect.

But both the suspect and his wife claimed that he was Liu, and the wife even showed police their marriage certificate from 10 years ago, proving they had the wrong man, police said.

It was only after the police got into contact with the suspect’s parents that they confirmed that the suspect was someone surnamed Xu.

Xu then confessed that he has been living with the fake name “for convenience” as a businessman and forged the marriage certificate to fool his "wife", police said.

Xu allegedly told the police that he brought home the fake marriage certificate assuring her that they were officially married, and police assumed that the “wife” probably had no idea that she was living with a man who hid his real identity and that she was not married at all.

The couple were both from out of town, police said.