AN absurd case was heard by a Shenzhen court Wednesday in which two men, one pretending to be a financial titan and the other claiming to be Emperor Qianlong — one of the greatest ancient emperors from the Qing Dynasty, who would be 300 years old now — swindled a woman out of over 40 million yuan (US$6 million).

    The suspects, Wan Jianmin, 55, and Liu Qianzhen, who pretended to be Emperor Qianlong, allegedly colluded in the scam.

    According to the procuratorate, Wan had invented his life experience, declaring that he had fought in the Vietnam War, served as director of the local tax bureau in Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province and even titled a well-known book on finance.

    The man boasted to be a national financial expert, who was a student of U.S. billionaire financier George Soros. Wan bragged about having close connections with overseas royal families and key figures in the Central Government.

    The victim, Zheng Xueju, first met Wan in 2012 when she wanted to set up a township bank. Wan introduced her to Liu.

    Liu told Zheng that he had eaten medication that made him immortal and had been living for over 300 years with possession of a large sum of royal assets.

    The woman believed what Wan and Liu had boasted about themselves and was first cheated out of 2.22 million yuan when Liu told her he was purchasing a cabbage statue made of jade. This was just a tiny part of what Zheng ultimately lost to the two men.

    The procuratorate’s charges show that in May 2014, Wan cheated Zheng with a new financial product that he had claimed could earn her 10 times her initial investment every year.

    Zheng transferred 1 million yuan to Wan’s bank account May 29, 2014 and asked him to invest in the financial product for her. Two months later, Wan used the same method to cheat another 4 million yuan out of Zheng.

    After receiving the 5 million yuan, Wan did not invest in any products, but transferred the money to various people’s bank accounts.

    With similar tricks about different kinds of projects, such as a Shenzhen-based technology company and industrial land, Wan and Liu gradually swindled Zheng out of over 40 million yuan in 2014.

    The case is still being investigated.

    This is not the first ridiculous case in recent years. From 2013 to 2014, a 48-year-old woman from a village in Henan Province colluded with a local vagrant to swindle over 2.34 million yuan.

    The village woman claimed to be a descendant of the royal family of the Qing Dynasty and in the process of inheriting 175 billion yuan.

    According to the “princess,” in order to unfreeze the heritage, she needed someone to invest in her projects and in return, the investor would be rewarded three times the investment amount.

    The two suspects conducted 13 scams using the same story and eventually were busted by police. (Zhang Qian)