Photo: Screenshot of online video

Love stories of couples with large age gaps often melt people's hearts, but that was not the case for a 27-year-old man in Shanghai who married a woman 49 years his senior. Their marriage came about as a result of a "kind" favor from the man, which ended with him being put behind bars. 

The marriage story came to the public's attention after being widely reported on Tuesday. 

The man, who worked for a financial management and investment enterprise, offered to marry the woman, his close client, to "help" her manage her finances after she lost a large amount of money in an investment case. 

The man, along with two other colleagues, persuaded the woman, surnamed Liu, to marry him so that she could mortgage her house to the bank and use the money in a new investment. 

The marriage took place in June, 2017, but Liu only recently realized that she had been caught in a scam, as she had not seen a return in her investment for the past three years. 

She finally took the man and his two colleagues involved in the case to court. The three were indicted for alleged contract fraud and sentenced to two to three years in prison.