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HE was 26 years older and almost 9,000km away, but that did not stop Mr
Milan, 57, a German man, from falling in love with Anna, 31, supposedly a
Shenzhen native.
But after flying to China to see Anna, spending 660,000 yuan ($130,000) on
her and proposing, Mr Milan found out that he was a victim of an Internet
con.
And he wasn't alone. It turns out that Mr Milan was one of many men who were
allegedly cheated by Anna's false promises of marriage.
Chinese police have said that Anna's real name is Dai Hongjuan, and that she
is actually 35 years old.
She was also not born in Shenzhen as she claimed, but had moved there from
her birthplace in Chongqing.
Dai is now wanted by the police and her victims, who include Caucasian and
Hong Kong men.
For Mr Milan, it all started when he saw her photograph on an online
matchmaking site - the same picture that lured many men to her honey trap.
Attracted by her coquettish pose, her victims parted with big sums of money
when they went shopping with her, only to be jilted and abandoned when they
proposed marriage.
Mr Milan told Apple Daily that he saw Dai's photo in April last year and
began an e-mail correspondence with her.
Dai said she earned US$4,000 a month as a sales executive in an American
company.
Impressed with her fluent English and outgoing personality, MrMilan decided
to meet her five months later.
Dai's sexy online poses brought men running into her honey trap.
Initially, he wanted Dai to meet him in Germany but she claimed she could
not go to Germany as there were problems with her visa.
So, last September, Mr Milan flew to Shenzhen to meet her.
After chatting for three hours, Mr Milan was convinced that they were meant
to be.
The following day, when they went shopping, he bought her 13,000 yuan gold
chain.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Milan said: 'I was in Shenzhen for eight
days and we shopped every day. She made me buy things for her and I spent
60,000 yuan on her.
'If I appeared reluctant to buy something for her, she would say that she
was testing my sincerity.'
He claimed they had sex three days after meeting and she accepted his
marriage proposal after that.
Mr Milan said he was so serious about their marriage that he considered
helping Dai get permanent residency in Germany.
It was at that stage, said Mr Milan, that Dai began giving excuses to delay
the marriage.
She claimed she had just bought a 1 million yuan apartment in Shenzhen and
could not leave the country as she was paying instalments for it.
So Mr Milan returned to Germany first. Within the next three months, he
remitted another 600,000 yuan to her as payment for the apartment.
He thought he could finally marry Dai after making the last payment in
February this year.
COLD SHOULDER
But she started giving him the cold shoulder at that point and said they
could not marry as she had contracted leukaemia.
It was then that Mr Milan suspected that he had been cheated.
He flew back to Shenzhen to look for her but to no avail.
Realising that he had been conned, Mr Milan hired a lawyer in Guangdong and
tried surfing the Internet to track Dai down.
He even posted messages on Chinese Internet forums, only to be told that he
deserved what he had got.
Chinese police managed to establish Dai's identity, but were unable to nab
her at her last known address as she had sold the place to a Hong Kong man.
Still, Mr Milan is not giving up hope of getting his money back.
He said: 'I don't want her to be jailed. I just want my money back. I hope
that netizens in China will help me find her and I'll exhaust every avenue
tracking her down.'
Source: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,151776,00
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