Internet Casanova charged in serial online dating scam

Internet Casanova charged in serial online dating scam

• Source: Global Times
• [09:14 March 23 2011]
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Xicheng district procuratorate charged a man Tuesday for conning four women he met through various online dating sites out of thousands in yuan while claiming to be a relative of Hong Kong millionaires.

Feng Yuzhou met his first victim Ding Wenli (pseudonym) on jiayuan.com, a popular dating website, in August 2006. Feng introduced himself as Huo Xuantao, a relation of the Hong Kong millionaire Henry Ying Tung Fok.

Ding fell in love with Feng, and obliged when he needed cash for everything from "business meetings" to "sponsoring poverty-stricken children" and "helping friends to study overseas." Each time Feng asked her to wire the money to accounts other than his own. In total Ding transferred more than 140,000 yuan ($21,363).

Luo Juan (pseudonym) met Feng on the same website in August 2006, who this time assumed the identity of a Hong Kong man named Xin Qing Shui.

Feng claimed he was a graduate from Tsinghua University and was sponsoring 45 orphans. Luo also fell in love and transferred 230,000 yuan over ten transactions to help his cause.

A third woman, Wang Xiaonan (pseudonym) first came in contact with Feng on another dating website zhenai.com in April 2008, where he claimed to be the cousin of Hong Kong millionaire Huo Qigang, Henry Ying Tung Fok's grandson.

The last victim Zhang Xuan (pseudonym) also met Feng on jiayuan.com in May 2010, where he introduced himself as a Chinese-British man named John William who sponsored 45 orphans in Dalian. Zhang transferred him 15,000 yuan to help the orphans.

In August 2010, these four women all filed reports with police after seeing an online notice about a con artist who worked under the aliases of Huo and Xin.

The police finally tracked down Feng, an unemployed father of one, who was both married and the boyfriend of three other women, a press release from Xicheng procuratorate revealed.

"People should be wary when using Internet dating sites, as the accuracy of many matching systems is not well-refined. Meanwhile, people should look into the real identities of their matches to avoid such cons," procurator Xu Xiaoyan wrote in the press release.

Global Times