A GERMAN man living in Frankfurt has claimed a Shenzhen woman he met through the Internet had defrauded him of more than 600,000 yuan (US$81,081).

The man, 57, who gave his name as Milan, is a single businessman. He is in Shenzhen seeking police help to find the 31-year-old Shenzhen woman, identified only as Ah Juan, and recover the money, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Milan, who holds a bachelor’s degree in telecom engineering, said he decided to find a Chinese wife on the Internet after one of his friends in Germany married a Chinese woman. That’s where the story began.

He met Ah Juan online in April last year. She claimed to be a single saleswoman living in Shenzhen and looking for a husband aged between 35 and 70.

“She claimed she loves work, but always puts family first,” Milan said. “That’s what I had hoped. And, of course, she looked beautiful as well.”

They got along well with each other on the Internet and Ah Juan invited Milan to visit her last September.

Milan flew to Shenzhen on Sept. 14 and found Ah Juan looked “astonishingly beautiful,” spoke fluent English and acted in a reserved manner during their first meeting at a Luohu hotel.

Milan said he fell in love with her at first sight. Ah Juan took him shopping over the next seven days, which cost him more than 60,000 yuan.

Milan said he had slept with Ah Juan twice before he left Sept. 22. He had fallen “head over heels” in love with her after she told him she loved him, which he had never before heard from a woman other than his mother.

Milan proposed to Ah Juan, who agreed on the condition he paid a 1-million-yuan mortgage for her apartment in Shenzhen.

Over the next three months, Milan sent her 600,000 yuan. However, Ah Juan began to cool off in February, then turned him down claiming she had leukemia. She then disappeared.

Milan came to Shenzhen last month in the hope of finding the woman, but to no avail. “I realized I might have been cheated,” he said.

He went to the German Embassy in China and Shenzhen police for help. (Li Jing)