Con artist from rural China who hired luxury cars, pretended to be rich, swindled 40 women out of US$280,000 jailed for 13 years

Several other women also told the police they had been cheated out of money by him.

Investigators discovered that Gu faked his identity, dated multiple women simultaneously using sophisticated “time management” skills and tricked the women into lending him money.

It is understood that at least 40 women fell for the con and that the case involved a total of two million yuan, police in Sichuan said.

Gu, 33, was born in a small village in eastern Jiangsu province and dropped out of primary school in grade two. He later married but divorced years ago, the report said.

His elaborate scam involved posing as the boss of a construction company, renting luxury cars with borrowed money, acquiring fake property ownership certificates and even hiring a chauffeur to drive him around.

The set-up attracted many single women from dating websites, aged between 20s and 40s.

He would ask them to lend him money, claiming his non-existent company had a temporary cash-flow issue or that he had just made investments.

The women were convinced he was wealthy because of his extravagant lifestyle funded by the money he had taken from other women.

In 2022, Gu left Jiangsu after some of his “girlfriends” became suspicious when he did not return their money.

He moved to Sichuan province in the southwest of the country where he told people he was a construction company boss from Jiangsu who owned several properties and cars. He said he was divorced and hoped to find a wife.

To attract women, Gu promised to buy them houses and cars. He also offered to meet their parents to prove he was sincere about the relationship.

In January, a court in Tongjiang county, Sichuan, sentenced Gu to 13 years in jail and fined him 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) for fraud.

Another recent case of fraud took place in Shanghai and the court imprisoned a man to 13 years and 10 months for swindling a woman and her parents out of 20 million yuan (US$2.8 million).

Pretending to be rich, he dated the woman and persuaded her and her parents to sell their flats, putting the money into his bank account, the court said.