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A married woman in China has been detained by police for hiring actors to impersonate herself and her parents on a blind date.
The man, named Xin, a resident of central China's Hubei province, met the woman who identified herself as Xiaoyu. She reached out to him in August 2022 after seeing his contact details in a wedding planning advertisement, South China Morning Post reported.
A month after their initial online meeting, Xiaoyu professed her love to Xin.
As the two of them started planning their marriage last year, the woman informed Xin that he will have to pay a 'bride price' of 188,000 yuan (US$26,000) to her family, according to the local customs.
In January 2023, Xin visited her home and brought along gifts worth 10,000 yuan to meet her parents. However, she claimed that she would not be able to meet him as she was ill.
Thereafter, she continued to take money from him claiming that she required it for her mother's surgery as well as gifts for her sister, while consistently denying Xin's request to meet in person, citing that it was “inconvenient”.
In order to deceive the culprit, she continued to share her photographs and spoke to him over the phone which helped her assuage his growing suspicions.
According to Xin, he transferred more than 220,000 yuan to the woman throughout last year.
Xiaoyu finally agreed to meet Xin in April and stated that she would come with her parents and sister to his city. However, during the meeting, the man noticed that the woman looked completely different from her photographs. To this, she alleged that the images were “beautified”.
A month after that, Xin's family met with the woman's family to discuss wedding arrangements. During this time, Xin again transferred additional funds and even brought new clothes worth 40,000 yuan for them.
However, Xin was left surprised when he accidentally went on to discover chat messages on Xiaoyu's phone. In the messages, she had complained about him “constantly asking to meet,” while promising to “act according to the script”.
On being confronted, Xiaoyu claimed that it was somebody else who was using her account. A day later, Xiaoyu's sister, Xiaomiao, met Xin in person and told him that her sister was “depressed,” while requesting him to break up with her.
Xin felt there was something fishy and decided to uncover the truth. Hen then travelled to Xiaoyu's city and called her up. However, Xiaomiao answered the phone on her behalf. This is when Xin realised that Xiaomiao was the actual “fiancée” he had been allegedly dating for the past two years.
According to police, the unemployed married woman, surnamed Zhou, even had a child and had hired actors to portray her family and herself in order to extract money from Xin. She wanted the money to financially support her child. In total, Xin sent her 480,000 yuan (US$65,000) before the accused was detained by police in November.