A MAN who pretended to be a police officer to cheat people and get dates online was recently caught.

Shajing Police Station in Bao’an District received a report May 14, saying that a man was suspected of swindling people and getting dates online by pretending to be a police officer.

Police checked QQ for the suspect surnamed Lin with the QQ number provided by the whistleblower and found many photos of him in a police uniform. The suspect lived in a community in Shajing, but when an officer went to his apartment, there were a woman and a baby inside.

On the second visit, police officers asked the landlord to open the apartment, where they found fake police ID cards and uniforms in a suitcase. The suspect claimed to have bought the contraband online.

The investigation showed Lin had cheated people out of 17,000 yuan (US$2,665) by promising them help in getting enrolled in the city’s police officer school. He had fathered a baby with a young woman while his legal wife was in Yulin, Guangxi.

Lin has been criminally detained. (Richard Han)