Alleged fraudulent matchmaking lands dozens behind bars

Seven suspects have been arrested for allegedly running frauds on a livestreaming platform, Shanghai police officials said on Friday.

The suspects allegedly paired lonely men with attractive female streamers who falsely offered to be their lovers, and charged them large amounts of money during the women’s livestreaming shows.

Police in Songjiang District began their investigation last July after a 35-year-old man surnamed Zhang reported the ongoing fraud.

Zhang said he fell in love with a livestreaming woman named “Mengmeng," who promised to marry him.

The woman asked Zhang to support her by paying money during her shows, to which he obliged until his balance ran low. She subsequently disappeared from his life.

Through their investigation, police found three people based in Guangzhou behind Mengmeng's WeChat account. The one claiming to be Mengmeng is actually a married woman surnamed Yang who is one of the primary suspects. She and her husband registered a media company last April to run the fraud.

Among the company's employees, Yang and another woman livestreamed, while the others searched for lonely men on the Internet.

More than 80 people from different parts of the country fell victim and lost over 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million).

After the suspects were apprehended, police focused on the livestreaming platform through which they defrauded the victims. They discovered the tech company operating the app — located in Shandong Province — was cooperating with several gangs of livestreaming fraudsters from whom they took kickbacks.

Police then tracked down six other gangs in Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan and Jiangsu provinces that netted 66 more suspects.