Woman creates counterfeit past to scam trusting boyfriend out of 320,000 yuan

A woman has been sentenced to five years in prison for scamming her boyfriend out of about 320,000 yuan ($51,488), a district court announced Tuesday.

The defendant, surnamed Wu, 29, first contacted her future boyfriend, a bank manager surnamed Zhang, in October 2011 after seeing his personal ad on a television dating show.

Because Zhang was looking for a girlfriend with a stable job, Wu fabricated an identity as an elementary school teacher by buying a counterfeit university degree and employment certificate, according to a press release from the Pudong New Area People's Court.

Wu only had a ninth grade education and was unemployed at the time.

After the pair started dating, Wu told Zhang that she needed money to pay for her father's heart surgery.

Zhang transferred money to Wu's bank account on several occasions, giving her 143,000 yuan in total from the end of 2010 to January 2011.

Although her father did have a heart problem, Wu never gave him any of the money she got from Zhang, the court said.

Later that year, Wu told Zhang she had been diagnosed with leukemia and needed money for treatment. She hired someone to create fake medical bills to show Zhang, who gave her a total of 90,000 yuan from April 2011 to September 2012.

Zhang made a "decent" income, said Fu Xinzhen, a press officer with the Pudong New Area People's Court. "Zhang is a kind man who got caught up in Wu's lies," Fu told the Global Times.

Wu continued to ask Zhang for money for a variety of phony reasons, including a loan to a coworker, an uncle who needed to repay a gambling debt and an auntie who needed money to see a doctor. Zhang gave her another 197,000 yuan from August 2011 to September 2012, the court said.

In October 2012, Zhang discovered a problem with Wu's social security account and confronted her about her background.

Wu confessed that she had never been a teacher and had been lying to him for nearly two years. She then went with Zhang to turn herself into police.

Wu had a history of deception, Fu said. She divorced her ex-husband after scamming her then mother-in-law out of 20,000 yuan.

The court said it gave Wu a lenient sentence because she cooperated with police. She was also fined 5,000 yuan.