Liao Dan, a former Beijing factory worker with only a secondary school education, became known across China as the country’s “most devoted fraudster” after he forged hospital payment records to keep his wife alive.
His case has now returned to public attention after mainland media revisited how an unemployed husband, trapped between poverty and an unaffordable healthcare system, orchestrated a years-long forgery scheme so his wife, Du Jinling, could continue receiving dialysis.
The crime was not disputed. Liao forged Beijing Hospital charge notes and invoices from November 2007 to September 2011, evading more than 172,000 yuan, roughly US$25,000 to US$27,300.
