A Chinese farmer has been convicted this week for swindling more than 2 million Yuan (£200,000) from the unwitting public.

The woman, named as Wang Fengying, had posed as a Qing dynasty princess in a year-long scam in China, reported People's Daily Online.

Wang, along with an accomplice named as Yang Jianglin, asked people to invest in a company, which she claimed would help 'unfreeze' royal assets that she controlled.

Wang pretended to be Princess Changping, a descendant of the Aisin Gioro royal family.

Aisin Gioro ruled during the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1911) and were the last royal family in China before it became a republic.

Wang claimed to be in charge of 175 billion Yuan (£17.5 billion) worth of assets, which were frozen.

To make her scam realistic, she purchased fake American dollars and various 'gold' bars and gave them to investors as collateral.

The fake gold was stamped with royal insignia and dates.

They also used 'official' stamps from the treasury and 'treasure maps' in their scheme.

Between February 2013 and July 2014, the couple employed the scam 13 times and received 2,343,500 Yuan (£234,350) from the victims.

To read the complete article, see:
Farmer pretended to be a Chinese princess and swindled investors out of more than £200,000 with fake gold and US dollars (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3227572/Farmer-pretended-Chinese-princess-swindled-investors-200-000-fake-gold-dollars.html)