20 Vietnamese women disappear after marriage in China
By IANSTuesday, May 11, 2010
BEIJING - Twenty Vietnamese women, who married Chinese men in Jiangxi province last month, have disappeared in a single day, police said.
All the 20 brides disappeared from Lichuan county in the province on the same day, Global Times reported Tuesday.
A villager, named Wang, who married a Vietnamese woman named Ruan Xiaofang, said he was introduced to her March 4. They got married soon after Wang agreed to give Ruan’s family 33,000 yuan ($4,830) as a betrothal gift.
Ruan, meanwhile, introduced 19 other Vietnamese women to Wang’s bachelor friends. All the women got married to the men after receiving betrothal gifts. But on a trip in April, Ruan left to buy something and never returned, Wang said.
After returning home that night, Wang found out that all the other Vietnamese brides had also disappeared.
Police in Jiangxi province, who were searching for the missing women, said they were illegal immigrants who married local farmers to cheat them out of betrothal gifts.
