China Scene: East

Prince Charming turns out to be king of thieves

A migrant worker was recently sentenced to a year in prison for conning a 24-year-old woman in Shanghai. The junior high school-educated man, who has a wife and child, met Xiao Yan (not her real name) online and told her he was a Harvard graduate in the city to take care of his parents' Hong Kong-based company's representative office.

He promised to buy Xiao a villa and marry her. But later, he told her his parents disapproved of their love and had frozen his bank account, leaving him with no money to return to Hong Kong.