An unemployed man in eastern China was recently found to have swindled about 800,000 yuan (about $120,000) from multiple women since 2014 while pretending to be a government official.
The Modern Express, a regional newspaper in Nanjing, reported that the suspect, surnamed Ding, frequented a mahjong parlor. There, he boasted his supposed credentials as the director of a provincial development and reform committee.
In 2014, Ding became acquainted with a fellow mahjong player, a woman surnamed Huang, who was impressed by his extravagant gambling habits when at the parlor. He told her that his committee was raising funds for a subordinate enterprise with a promised interest rate on return of 15 percent.
