African man disguised as female tricks Chinese man out of 2 mln yuan  

非洲男子冒充“美女大兵”骗走河南男子218万

Two suspects have been arrested and taken back to Henan province, China. (Photo: dahe.cn)

(ECNS) – A man surnamed Xiao learned a hard lesson when a beautiful female soldier with whom he'd been chatting online for months turned out to be an African man, swindling him out of 2.18 million yuan ($350,000).

Xiao, from China's Henan province, met online a "pretty woman" nicknamed Tropple in August, who described herself as an American soldier stationed in Congo.

Tropple sent Xiao pictures of her daily life in the army, which tricked Xiao into believing that she was a tall, sexy woman.

One day, Tropple mentioned an orphan she had came across in Congo, whose father left her a leather case with $4.5 million inside before he died.

Tropple said as long as they transferred the case to China, they could cash in and spend the money however they wanted.

After rounds of "negotiations," Tropple promised to give Xiao 35 percent of the money as commission, on the condition that Xiao first pay the transaction fees and other fees.

Convinced of the authenticity of the story, Xiao put all his savings, as well as money borrowed from relatives and friends, into Tropple's account.

After several days, a foreign man called him, saying that the case had arrived in Guangdong. Xiao tried to break the news to Tropple, only to find that she had disappeared, along with the foreign man who had called him.

Only then did Xiao realize he'd been tricked.

Based on withdrawal records, the police were able to locate and arrest two suspects in Shenyang. The two admitted that the female soldier is actually a man from Africa.

The police have launched a manhunt.