Suspects arrested in dating scam

Police in Xincheng district of Xi'an, Shaanxi province, arrested suspects on suspicion of swindling people out of 310,000 yuan ($49,800) in half a month by befriending people and luring them to a cafe where they were charged excessive prices.

Xi'an Evening News reported that a 35-year-old man surnamed Zhou called police after he had an appointment at a cafe with a woman he had met online.

The girl, nicknamed "Bingbing", ordered fruit, coffee and wine for 598 yuan, and then another bottle of wine for 1,680 yuan. After Zhou paid the bill, the woman left, saying she had to take a phone call outside, but didn’t return.

Police arrested the suspects after a 20-day investigation.

Police said the suspects rented a cafe as their base and worked as a team. The gang allegedly comprised a boss, a keyboard player, five female scammers, and five guards.

The keyboard player, usually male, would chat online to potential victims while pretending to be a young lady interested in a date. The victim then would be lured to the cafe for a meeting.

Once there, the scammer would order food and drinks and then ask the victim to pay. The scammer would insult the victim if the victim was unwilling to pay, and if the victim still resisted, the guards would threaten them, police said.

"The wine in the cafe, selling from 300 yuan to 3,000 yuan, was actually a blend of water and wine worth only 4 yuan a bottle," police said.

The frauds would divide the money proportionally. Usually the boss took 30 percent, the keyboard player 28 percent, the scammer 20 percent, and the guards and waiters would split the remaining 22 percent. "A scammer earns over 1,000 yuan a day on average," police said.