Editor’s Note: Hearing reports of scam artists in China is nothing new, but you have to admire the creativity of this guy. This article, translated from Sohu News, tells the story of how “John Louis” claimed to be British aristocracy who needed financial help from Good Samaritans in Nanjing. It’s sad that these people were scammed but it’s also good to know that there are still good-willed people in the world.

The man claimed to be called John Louis, and seemed to be Eurasian or mixed race. He claimed that his grandparents were British aristocracy and he had worked in the Embassy of the United Kingdom. His CV and background were very impressive and many believed that he was a truly incredible person. He claimed that he had lost his passport and bank card in Nanjing and was therefore extremely distressed and needed to borrow money from those around him. When it was discovered that the money he claimed he had from being of “aristocratic descent” didn’t exist, the police knew that he had been fooling others with his story. On top of this, when police attempted to have an English conversation with him at the station, the so-called English “aristocratic descendent,” could not answer their questions. They soon found that John Louis’ real surname was actually Lu. He was not descended from English aristocracy but was a regular Chinese man who lived in Shanghai and was originally from Yancheng, Jiangsu.

  
So-called “descendent of British aristocracy,” Lu borrowed large sums of money from individuals in Nanjing and never paid it back and was sent to the police station.

From May 20 to May 24, Lu was taken to four different Nanjing police stations. Each time, the police concluded that the disputes between Lu and those who lent him money were private and Lu promised the police that he would repay the debts; therefore no charges were officially given.

An Aristocrat in Trouble in Nanjing

Xiao Li frequented a café in Nanjing near 1912, Nanjing’s nightlight district. In March this year, she was introduced to the café owner and met a new worker at the café named John. “His eyes made it seem like he was mixed race, they were similar to other mixed race foreigners’ eyes,” said Xiao Li. John was very warm and enthusiastic. He claimed to be descended from British aristocracy, which is part of the English royal lineage. “He said that he had grown up in England but had come to China on an academic exchange and was studying for a Ph.D. in Chinese at Beijing Foreign Studies University. His Mandarin was okay but he spoke a bit like a foreigner and stuttered a little. Overall though, he was very talkative,” said Xiao Li.

John said that he had studied coffee-making in Italy and had won awards for it in international competitions. “After he had finished talking about his background, he said that he had been hired by an international company in Nanjing who had wanted to invest in opening a new store but had been cheated by them and his passport and bank cards had been detained.” Xiao Li said that the owner of the café was very poor, he had hired John to work in the coffee shop but could only pay him about 2,000 RMB per month in salary.

Xiao Li and John quickly became good acquaintances. After speaking with friends a few times, John said that his friend was selling cell phones for only 100 Yuan. “We knew his situation was not good, and decided to help him. I told him to buy two and gave him 1,560 Yuan,” said Xiao Li. Originally, John said that the cell phones would arrive in the next two or three days, but she waited and waited and it never came. Later, John said that he needed money to retrieve his passport and she loaned him 2,000 Yuan. “I don’t have that much, but I lent it to him.”

After more than 10 days, the phone had not arrived yet. John had also not contacted Xiao Li. She began to feel strange. Her friend went to the café and asked for him. His boss said that John had not come to work in several days and that many people seemed to be looking for him. “I then knew that he had found a lot of people in Nanjing to borrow from, it is clear that there were 20 people in Nanjing alone.

Most had never heard him speak English

About 20 different people had lent John money including a manager of a company, a snack shop owner, a white collar worker, a college student and more. Mr. Chen, a teacher at a university in Nanjing was among those who lent John money. “I heard that John came to Nanjing at the end of last year and I met him January of this year.” Mr. Chen said that when he heard John’s story, he was very interested. He was especially interested in John’s history of coffee making.

“I also want to open up a coffee shop, so I started chatting him up about what he had done in the past with coffee. I thought that he understood, or at least had some understanding of the coffee industry.” When Mr. Chen first met with John, he only seemed to need a small amount of money. However, one day, John suddenly called him up. “He said that he was sick and needed 800 Yuan to see a doctor.  I thought: why on earth would it be 800 Yuan? But I decided to give him 1,000 Yuan.” Mr. Chen told reporters that he had also heard John’s plan for buying cheap cell phones and gave him money to buy one. Again, the cell phone never arrived.

As a teacher in a university, Mr. Chen had come across many foreigners. How had he not been able to tell that John was a fraud? “Face to face, he really did have very deep-set eyes and looked like he was mixed-race,” said Mr. Chen. Reporters interviewed a number of people who had lent money to John and asked them about their general impression of his English. “I heard him speak very simple English, we mainly used Mandarin to communicate,” said white-collar worker Xiao Wang.

Claims to be the CEO of a Coffeehouse in Shanghai

Every time he met a new friend, John would talk at length about his glorious past. He spoke about working at the Cultural Office of the British Embassy and said that he had worked in the British Pavilion at the World Expo. “We investigated his story and found out that he had not worked at the British Pavilion of the World Expo but had worked at the coffee bar of a small African country’s pavilion as serving staff,” said Xiao Wang. Through the investigation, it was found that John’s real last name was Lu and he was originally from Yancheng in Jiangsu, however his parents and other family lived in Shanghai. “It seems that he was one-eighth Jewish, but we were unable to confirm this.”

When boasting about his own history with coffee making, John mentioned several times that he was already the CEO of a café in Shanghai and had designed the café himself. Yesterday afternoon, reporters reached the café in Shanghai and learned that the boss was a man named Mr. Xiao. Mr. Xiao said that Lu had previously worked at the coffeehouse for quite some time but had never served as CEO. “He is Chinese, so how can he have British royal blood?” said Mr. Xiao. “I am barely in contact with him, but people say that he is not very trustworthy.”

Cannot Even Speak a Full Sentence in English

“He lied his way into money, we think his behavior is really quite ugly,” said Xiao Li. Her friends helped her out and they eventually were about to bring together nearly 20 people who had lent Lu money and were never paid back. The total amount of money Lu gained from these loans totals hundreds of thousands of Yuan. “We do not care about losing the money; we just don’t want him to trick anyone else.”  

Through Xiao Li and other’s efforts, Lu was found on Zhonghua Road on May 20. However, when Lu was brought into the Jiankang Road Police Station and made to record his statement, the police did not believe that his actions constituted fraud. Lu promised the police that he would pay all of the money he borrowed back and was released 24 hours later by the police. These developments disappointed many people. He was then sent by those he wronged to a different police station in Xinjiekou on May 21, then sent to the police station in Jiangning Development Zone on May 22 and sent to the Qixia district police station on May 23. Each time, the results were the same. The police were unable to determine whether Lu had committed fraud.

In the middle of all this, there was a small victory. When Lu was sent to the police station in Jiangning Development Zone, the police had heard that he had claimed to be of “British aristocratic descent” and brought in their officer with the best English. However, the man of “noble descent,” could not even speak a full sentence in English.

Source: Sohu.com

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Keywords: China Con Artist in Nanjing