Zhang Qiang, a 33-year-old businessman from Beijing was so desperate to find love that he ended up being tricked into a scam and marrying someone who claimed to be carrying his child. There was just one problem: he’d never had sex with his wife. And, although Qiang didn’t yet know it, there was another problem: his wife was actually a man. Apparently, Qiang spend most of his time traveling for business and came to the realisation that it was too difficult to meet his soulmate during his day-to-day routine. So he decided to sign up for a Chinese online dating service in August 2014. With great luck, Qiang stumbled upon the profile of a 27-year-old female Air Force officer who was everything he was looking for. Little did the businessman know that on the other side of that profile was Mr. Fang, a notorious con artist and swindler.
It took only three months of exchanging messages online before Qiang and Fang decided to become a couple. After another month, Fang, who dressed like a woman and carried a fake ID showing him to be a female Air Force officer, told “her” boyfriend that “she” was pregnant with his child and that they needed to get married. Despite the fact that they’d never had sex, Qiang raised no objections and wedding planning got underway. For those of you keeping score at home, Qiang wasn’t a complete fool. At one point he did inquire about the bulge in his fianceé’s pants, but Fang explained it away as a tumor and Qiang was satisfied with the answer. As the marriage plans quickly came together, Fang hired actors to pose as his parents, which is more typical of the fake wedding guests in South Korea than in China. But the actors did their part and not only conned Qiang, but also his parents, into believing that Fang was a lovely young woman. The two were subsequently married in March 2015 although they never obtained a marriage certificate because Fang claimed he lost his identification card.
Although a marriage license wasn’t procured, the two were legally married and suffered some of the growing pains of a new couple. In particular, Zhang’s busy work schedule had him on the road and he was forced to leave behind his “wife” for months at a time. While the two spent most of their time apart, as August 2015 rolled around, and the baby’s due date neared, Zhang’s mother and sister moved into Fang’s Beijing apartment. They quickly were bothered by the fact that Fang acted like a man. Qiang’s sister also soon discovered text messages in which Fang admitted to an associate that “she” was really a man.
After finding these text messages, Qiang’s family called the police and Fang was arrested in November 2015 and charged with swindling. According to the state prosecutor of the Shijingshan District, Fang extorted over $23,000 from Zhang in the time they were together. If found guilty, Fang will face a maximum of seven years in prison. Isn’t love precious?
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