Photo: VCG

The Abbot of a temple in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, has become entangled in an extortion case following an affair with female host Cai who sells furniture online. The female host and her husband were recently officially charged with extortion.

The news media outlet the Paper has confirmed from multiple sources that the abbot in the case is the abbot of Shixiang Temple in Pujiang County, Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Citing public information, media also reported that the abbot in this case was among the list of members of the 13th Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). He was a member representing the religious community. 

A public prosecution against Cai and her husband Qian on charge of extortion have been filed and the first trial of the case was held recently in the court of Mingshan District, Ya’an, Sichuan, involving a total of 3.2 million yuan ($439,300) of extortion, the Paper reported.

According to the indictment, Cai and her husband Qian were selling mahogany furniture online since 2020, the abbot, surnamed Zhang, came into contact with Cai in one of their live broadcasts while browsing through mahogany furniture, the pair subsequently remained in contact.

Cai later traveled to Sichuan and had sex with abbot Zhang at a hotel in Chengdu on February 24, 2021. Qian, the husband, later discovered the inappropriate behavior between his wife and abbot and learned that Zhang was a monk and the abbot of a famous temple in Pujiang county of Chengdu. Since, the couple began the extortion against the abbot.

This was not the first case of sex scandal involving monk in the country. A case involving master Xuecheng, an abbot from Beijing's Longquan Temple, who was accused of sexually abusing female apprentices in 2018, was one of the high-profile cases of monks being accused of sexual misconduct. Xuecheng later resigned as a member of the Standing Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

The couple’s extortion against the abbot firstly began in East China’s Fujian, according to the Mingshan District Prosecutor's office. On April 23, 2021, Cai arranged a meet-up with abbot Zhang at a hot spring resort hotel in Xianyou county, Fujian and unbeknownst to the abbot, Qian secretly recorded a video of their encounter using a hidden camera device that had been pre-installed. 

On July 10, 2021, Qian and Cai traveled to Chengdu, where Cai invited abbot Zhang to a hotel room. It was at this point that Qian revealed his identity as Cai's husband and confronted the abbot about his inappropriate behavior.

Initially, the abbot denied the allegations, but Qian presented intimate photos of himself and Cai taken in the hotel room of Fujian. Eventually, the abbot admitted to the inappropriate relationship. He then proposed to pay Cai one million yuan ($137,000) as a settlement. Ultimately, Cai received a total of two million yuan, including one million yuan worth of mahogany furniture from the abbot, and returned to Fujian with her husband.

Later, in February 2023, Qian traveled alone to Sichuan in an attempt to contact the abbot, but the latter did not respond. Subsequently, Qian reached out to the abbot's friend Wang and threatened to expose the matter online unless the abbot agreed to meet with him. 

Faced with no other options and after several rounds of negotiation, abbot Zhang was coerced into agreeing to pay Qian other 3.3 million yuan in installments and requested that Qian and Cai jointly issue a letter of understanding in Mingshan, Sichuan, to fully resolve the matter.

Then on February 24, 2023, the abbot requested a reduction in the owed amount, and Qian agreed to reduce it by an additional 100,000 yuan.

Cai, the female host drafted a letter of understanding based on the agreed-upon terms, and abbot Zhang transferred 500,000 yuan to the husband via bank transfer, in addition to paying 699,000 yuan in cash to the couple. 

Concerned about potential further extortion, the abbot contacted the police. The couple were since being apprehended by officers from the Mingshan District Branch of the Ya'an Public Security Bureau.

The prosecutor asserts Qian and Cai employed threatening methods to forcibly extort a significant amount of property from others, making them criminally liable for the offense of extortion. 

Qian was believed to have played the primary role as the principal offender, while Cai played a minor role as an accomplice and may receive a more lenient or reduced penalty, according to the prosecutor. 

Global Times