After the transfer, the home buyer suddenly turned and ran. The carefully planned fraud still fell through.
2026-07-11 07:00 Source: China News Service
Someone pretended to buy a house, someone bridged the deal, someone drove to pick up.
Carefully planned, the bridge-loan fraud still failed.
◆ Mr. Xue reached a "bridge loan” agreement with the “buyer” Wang, and two enthusiastic real estate agents accompanied them through the entire process. But at the transfer site, Wang suddenly grabbed the bank card that had received the money and ran.
◆ The police found that Wang had never intended to buy a house. In collusion with the agents, he fraudulently induced Mr. Xue to transfer 600,000 yuan under the pretext of needing a bridge loan for a home purchase.
◆ At the scene, Yuan was waiting on an electric bike near the bank, but later claimed he was just helping a friend give someone a ride. Was that really the case? Was the mastermind behind it the agent or someone else?
The trap was elaborately set, but the schemers still could not escape the net of justice. The Wuxi Liangxi District Procuratorate recently concluded a “bridge-loan fraud” case, in which all criminals were caught and the mastermind received a 10‑year prison sentence.
After the transfer, the home buyer suddenly turned and ran
Mr. Xue runs a bridge-loan business for home buyers in Wuxi. A bridge loan is a short‑term financing arrangement in which a third party provides temporary funds to cover a buyer’s shortfall, to be repaid once the buyer obtains a bank loan or uses his own funds later. In 2025, through agent Zhu, Mr. Xue met Wang, who claimed to need bridge funding for a house purchase.
To obtain the loan, Wang provided Mr. Xue with a detailed credit report and the house purchase contract for verification, and promised to repay the loan immediately after completing bank procedures. On January 6, 2025, the two met at a bank, signed a loan agreement, and Wang paid the interest in advance. Agents Meng and Zhu accompanied him throughout, helping with formalities.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly. The 600,000 yuan bridge loan was transferred into Wang’s bank card. But just as they were about to proceed to the next step, something unexpected happened: Wang grabbed the bank card and ran. Shocked, Mr. Xue instinctively chased him. Wang dashed into an alley next to the bank, jumped onto an electric bike that had been waiting there, and sped away.
“My money!” Mr. Xue gasped in anger.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Xue. We’ll go with you to report it to the police. He can’t get away—the money will be recovered.” Agents Meng and Zhu acted even more indignant than Mr. Xue, calming him down and taking the initiative to help him call the police and go to the station to cooperate.
That evening, Wang was arrested in another province. Upon arrest, he claimed that the agreement with Mr. Xue was not a house purchase bridge loan but a simple personal loan for liquidity purposes—a civil dispute, not a criminal offense.
Three‑person bridge‑loan fraud
However, when investigators retrieved the surveillance footage from the scene, they found that on the day before the incident, Wang and Meng had appeared together near the bank, apparently scouting an escape route. Their chat records showed that during the incident, Meng instructed Wang to “run.” When Wang asked how to deal with the police, Meng replied, “Say it’s a personal loan—you have an IOU. If you make it look like a civil dispute, the police won’t take the case.” This was a classic bridge‑loan fraud technique, indicating that Wang, Meng, and Zhu were highly suspicious.
Faced with the evidence, the trio’s defenses crumbled. All confessed that Wang had no intention of buying a house; Meng had planned and directed the scheme, Zhu had contacted the lender, and Wang had pretended to be a buyer. After tricking the victim into transferring the money, Wang simply grabbed the card and fled. Their plan to disguise the crime as a civil dispute fell apart in the face of solid evidence.
On February 6, 2025, the police submitted the case to the Wuxi Liangxi District Procuratorate for approval of arrest on suspicion of fraud.
Another figure in the surveillance footage
The prosecutor reviewing the case believed that Meng, Wang, and Zhu met the conditions for arrest, but another person in the files caught his attention: Yuan.
Yuan was the person who drove the electric bike to pick up Wang near the bank after he fled. In the early stages of the investigation, Yuan had appeared in the police’s field of view. When questioned, he claimed that he had only been asked by Meng to pick up Wang and knew nothing about the fraud. Meng and Zhu also denied that Yuan was involved. Therefore, the police only recorded his testimony and did not take compulsory measures against him.
However, the prosecutor noticed that Yuan also appeared in the surveillance footage of Meng and Wang scouting the location. “If Yuan was only helping a friend give someone a ride, why would he participate in the advance reconnaissance?”
After repeatedly reviewing the surveillance videos and carefully comparing details, the prosecutor concluded that in the footage, Meng and Wang followed behind Yuan, who actively pointed out the pickup location. This directly contradicted Yuan’s earlier testimony.
A more critical breakthrough came from electronic data. A full review of the evidence revealed a recorded phone call. As early as late 2024, Yuan had plotted similar crimes with Zhu. In the call, they explicitly mentioned “run as soon as the money is transferred” and “with a contract it’s a civil dispute—he can sue if he wants.” The evidence strongly suggested that Yuan was a major suspect, and the amount involved was extremely large, possibly warranting a sentence of 10 years or more. He should be arrested.
On February 14, 2025, the Liangxi District Procuratorate issued a recommendation to the police to arrest Yuan. On February 18, Yuan was summoned for interrogation and placed under compulsory measures. On March 27, the procuratorate approved his arrest on fraud charges.
No one gets away
After his arrest, Yuan refused to confess, and Meng and Zhu still denied his involvement. To strengthen the evidence, the prosecutor guided the police to recover data from the suspects’ phones. By systematically sorting through tens of thousands of WeChat records, the prosecutor found that Yuan had sent messages containing the property valuation and real estate inquiry results for the house involved, as well as Wang’s credit report, ID card, business license photo, and the bank card password. This proved that all information used in the fraud was under Yuan’s control. On the day of the incident, Yuan also instructed Meng via WeChat to make sure to have an IOU, write “liquidity” as the purpose, and delete and destroy all chat records and the purchase contract.
The suspects’ statements contradicted the objective evidence, suggesting possible pre‑trial collusion. In response, the prosecutor conducted targeted interrogations based on the objective evidence, simultaneously explaining the law, clarifying the standards for identifying principal and accessory roles in joint crimes and the legal liability for collusion and concealment, while also making clear that leniency was available for those who confessed and accepted punishment.
Eventually, Meng and Zhu’s luck ran out. They confessed truthfully that Yuan had organized and directed the crime, destroyed key evidence, and arranged collusion among the suspects. After review, the procuratorate determined that Yuan had played a principal role in the joint crime. In September 2025, the procuratorate filed a public prosecution against Yuan for fraud.
At the trial on December 1, 2025, Yuan still tried his luck, denying the main facts and arguing about his role in the joint crime. In response, the prosecutor presented the surveillance video of the advance reconnaissance, chat records, recorded phone calls, and other objective evidence, proving that he had proposed the idea, actively scouted the scene, directed the crime via WeChat, arranged the escape, and actually controlled the stolen funds—fully demonstrating his principal role in the joint crime. The court should find him the principal offender.
On December 9, 2025, the court sentenced defendants Meng, Zhu, and Wang to five years, four years and nine months, and three years and nine months in prison, respectively, each with a fine. In April 2026, the court sentenced Yuan to ten years in prison and a fine of 100,000 yuan. The verdicts are now effective.
It is reported that the procuratorate earlier guided the police to recover more than 599,700 yuan of the stolen amount. Together with a 300 yuan compensation from the suspects’ families, the full 600,000 yuan has been returned to the victim.
(Correspondent Hua Xuesong, Li Xin, Li Yao)
Source: Procuratorate Daily Editor: Chen Jing
