Photo: Wang Liqiang and screenshot from the court video

Wang Liqiang, the self-proclaimed Chinese spy who defected to Australia, seems to have become an abandoned card after being used by Western media, yet some politicians on the island of Taiwan have ignored the facts and are mixing up black and white and using him as an anti-mainland chip.  

Sources close to Wang told the Global Times that he cheated his former boss surnamed Lu out of more than 2 million yuan ($285,885) in 2016. As Wang had written a "letter of request for understanding" and "guarantee letter" and promised to return the money, Lu did not report the fraud case to police. 

Lu told the Global Times in an exclusive interview in Shanghai that "Wang Liqiang is a complete and born fraudster. I regret not sending him to the public security bureau." 

Lu got to know Wang at a dinner in East China's Fujian Province in early 2016 after being introduced by one of Lu's friends. The friend said that Wang had just graduated from Anhui University of Finance and Economics (Wang actually studied at the university without obtaining a degree) and hoped to find a job in Shanghai. Lu happened to have businesses in Shanghai and agreed to recruit Wang as a favor to his friend.

After the Spring Festival of 2016, Wang began working in Lu's company in Shanghai, which was when the deception began.

According to the "guarantee letter", "letter of request for understanding" and other documents Lu showed to the Global Times, all of which were signed by Wang himself and carried his fingerprints, the fraudster had swindled Lu out of more than 2 million yuan using various excuses, including a low-cost property purchase and high return investments.

Documents reveal that Wang cheated Lu out of more than 1 million yuan within a few months since April 2016, persuading him to invest in art works that he claimed would yield high returns.

Wang had showed Lu two fake official files from the committee of Anhui University of Finance and Economics, which alleged that Wang was one of members in charge of the national arts fund work team at the university involving hundreds of million dollars. 

Wang claimed he needed deposits to unfreeze the large sum of frozen national arts funds and managed to swindle Lu out of 400,000 yuan in that case, Lu said, showing fabricated red-headed No. 32 and No. 33 university documents.

When reached by the Global Times, Anhui University of Finance and Economics stated that the university's original No. 32 and No.33 documents in 2016 were related to the Party building work leadership team and the management of the university's official vehicles respectively. The documents Wang used to swindle Lu were completely fabricated. 

In the documents kept by Lu, Wang confessed that he used some of the swindled money to pay his own and his family members' debts, and the rest to pay for his luxurious lifestyle, such as spending more than 50,000 yuan on a Cartier watch.

It was only after several months that Lu discovered there was something wrong with Wang and his money.

"He used the new money I gave him as the investment return from a previous project. And I also noticed a strange phenomenon. Wang had to return to his hometown in Fujian Province every month, saying that he needed to take care of his father," Lu recalled.

"Later, I learned that Wang was sentenced to jail for a year and three months in his hometown court, with a reprieve of a year and a half. I guess he had to be back home to report to local officials on his whereabouts. His employment in Shanghai may not have been approved by local authorities, so he had to go back home from time to time." 

With the help of his lawyer, Lu discovered and exposed Wang's tricks and demanded that Wang shoulder all financial liability. Wang's father also rushed to Shanghai to beg for Lu's forgiveness. Wang kneeled in front of him and begged for forgiveness, writing a "guarantee letter" and "letter of request for understanding," promising to pay the funds back.

"To give the then 23-year-old Wang Liqiang a chance, I decided not to report him to police, after some hesitation," Lu told the Global Times. "But I now regret that decision."

"Lu is extremely close to me. He has always cared about me. Big or trivial, his care for me is incomparable. He takes care of my food, clothing, housing, and transportation. He intends to coach and cultivate me so that I have a chance to survive in Shanghai," Wang Liqiang wrote in the "letter of request for understanding." "But I have repeatedly deceived Lu, and I don't think I am a human being."

"Since school, Wang Liqiang has deceived his friends, schoolmates and then me and now foreigners abroad. All this proves that Wang is a 100 percent natural fraudster," Lu concluded.


Newspaper headline: Victim regrets not exposing Wang Liqiang