China Scene: East

Man's stories of death fail to convince colleague

A young woman saw right through a colleague's tall tales of death in his family in Jiangsu province and helped police officers arrest the alleged scam artist two months ago.

Liu Hai, 29, from Zaozhuang, Shandong province, met Yang Xiaomei, resident of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in October 2006 when both worked in an insurance company. Liu told Yang that 12 members in his families died from July 2007 to June 2009 and asked Yang for 200,000 yuan.