By Zhang Yu, China Daily
Police in Handan, Hebei province, are investigating the disappearance of more than 100 Vietnamese women who married local bachelors, and had been living in local villages. They vanished at the end of November.
Wedding rings. (Photo by Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images)
Yuan Xinqiang, 22, from Quzhou county, married a Vietnamese woman in September after being introduced to her by Wu Meiyu, a Vietnamese bride who has been living in another village in the county for about 20 years.
Since the beginning of this year, Wu had been saying she could introduce young Vietnamese women to local bachelors. If they liked each other, the man would pay Wu an amount of money based on his and the woman’s ages, and then they could marry.
Yuan paid 105,000 yuan ($17,000).
“If both are young, it would be expensive. If the woman is older, it costs less,” Yuan said.
“Since Wu had been in the village for a long time and has a 6-year-old grandson, I didn’t expect she would cheat me out of money,” Yuan said, adding that the bride was gentle and quiet and had won his trust.
Wu has disappeared, together with all the brides she introduced. Her only remaining family member is her father-in-law, who said Wu had gone abroad to arrange residency permits for the Vietnamese brides so they could settle in China, said a villager surnamed Ding, who paid 115,000 yuan to marry a Vietnamese woman.
A public servant of Handan, who declined to be named, said there might be an organised ring that helped all the brides leave en masse.
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