Twenty-six villagers from Huangpo district of Wuhan City, capital of Central China's Hubei province, were stranded in Russia with expired visas after being cheated by a fellow villager, who promised to arrange work for them in Russia, Wuhan Evening News reported on Tuesday.

The 26 villagers were taken to Russia by a man named Yuan Changhui in two batches, with the first batch leaving three months ago, according to one of the villagers.

After their arrival in Russia, they were sent out to work, which didn't even last 10 days, and they found that besides their dire living conditions, they were paid only 1,600 Russian ruble (about 200 yuan), much less than the 5,000 ruble promised by Yuan. Even worse, among the 26 visas, only seven were good for working; the other 19 were one-month business visas.

According to the report, Yuan was still trying to get more villagers to go to Russia, and an investigation would be launched as soon as possible.