THE Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau Longgang branch recently cooperated with Baihejiayuan Group, which runs online dating sites, to combat online dating fraud, according to the Shenzhen Evening News.

One popular tactic used by fraudsters is to pretend they are successful men to attract their “targets” on dating platforms. They usually use smooth language to coax the “targets” into giving them an online loan or participating in online gambling fraud before finally taking all their savings.

According to the police, the victims in cases like this lose nearly five times as much as those of other types of scams. The method first gained popularity in the Philippines and then spread across Southeast Asia.

A Chinese online dating app under Baihejiayuan Group called Shijijiayuan received a total of 1,482 complaints from victims claiming they had been cheated out of huge amounts of money between January and July this year.

A resident in Longgang using the pseudonym Wu Li was such a victim. She met a man identified as Wang Qiang on an online platform. They immediately became attracted to each other.

Wu was then persuaded by Wang to join a gambling business. Following the instructions provide by Wang, Wu successfully earned millions of yuan. However, Wu was swindled out of nearly 2 million yuan (US$281,429) after opening her own account. Wu had never met Wang in person, according to the report.

(Wang Jingli)