Man pleads not guilty in fraud case

A 38-year-old Fujian Province man pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he swindled a woman out of 7 million yuan ($1.1 million) with promises of a lucrative investment.

The defendant, Huang Su'an, refuted most of the prosecution's accusations in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court Thursday, including that he received 6.8 million yuan in cash from two unidentified intermediaries who remain at large.

The court announced it would deliver a verdict on the fraud charge at a later date. Huang could be sentence to more than 10 years in prison if convicted.

The prosecution asserted in court that Huang met the victim, Xie Lei, in 2011 through an online matchmaking site, where he posed as a Chinese-American businessman. After several conversations online, he convinced Xie to give him 7 million yuan to invest, and asked that she send the money in cash through a third party, prosecutors said.

"According to Xie's testimony, she put the money in a red suitcase and gave it to an unfamiliar man and woman. Xie did this because Huang told her that he was an American-born Chinese and the investment was secret," a prosecutor said in court.

Xie delivered the cash to the pair on two separate occasions last year, once in October and once in December, prosecutors said.

The prosecution also submitted bank transaction records that showed Xie transferred 250,000 yuan last October to a bank account that prosecutors said Huang had set up in someone else's name.

However, Huang's defense attorney argued that the prosecution's case was based on indirect evidence that failed to link his client to the cash, as there was little evidence that he arranged the meeting between Xie and the intermediaries.

After the trial, a prosecutor told the Global Times that authorities have had trouble tracking down the intermediaries. "These two are still at large, and the police have not identified them yet," the prosecutor said. "Huang communicated with them and Xie through online chat programs, and he has since deleted all the messages on his laptop computer."

The prosecution also presented testimony from Huang's girlfriend at the time, a woman surnamed Lin. Lin said in court that a locked red suitcase had appeared at the apartment they shared. It was heavy and she suspected it contained cash, but never got a look inside.

Huang's lawyer said that Lin's testimony lacked credibility because the relationship between her and Huang had soured around that time.

The prosecution also showed receipts that Huang had lent more than 4 million yuan to three businessmen at the beginning of this year, even though he earned a paltry income from his job as an Amway distributor. The prosecution showed evidence that Amway had only paid him 30,000 yuan since 2007.

In his defense, Huang argued that there were other legitimate ways to earn money as an Amway distributor that wouldn't require direct payment from the company.

Huang denied most of the charges against him, but when asked about the loans to the businessmen, he only replied that he had no recollection of making them.