China fund-raiser 'exploited' young girls

NANNING - A man known for raising millions of yuan to support education in a poor region in south-western China was arrested this week for using the charity drive as cover to lure underage girls to bed and offer them as sexual toys to donors, the Chinese media reported.

Wang Jie, 35, a former primary school teacher in Guangxi region's Longlin county, has also misappropriated much of the 7 million yuan (S$1.5 million) he claims to have raised over nine years for 4,000 village kids, according to the China Youth Daily.

Details of Mr Wang's alleged crimes cited by the newspaper were mainly given by a young man from northern Shandong province, who said that he launched a private investigation on Mr Wang in 2012, after making a donation via the Longlin native's fund-raising website.

According to the account of the young man, who wanted to remain anonymous, he became suspicious of Mr Wang's charity when a girl in Longlin sent him a message, saying that Mr Wang was a swindler as he gave the sponsored children far less money than he had promised donors.

The young man was also stunned when a friend revealed that Mr Wang told him online that if he made a substantial donation, he would "receive service from a primary or secondary schoolgirl" when he came to Longlin.

When the young man posed as a potential donor and contacted Mr Wang, he received 10 video clips from the fund-raiser showing him bedding some young girls, as an assurance that the donation would be "worth his while".

The young man later went to Longlin and convinced some girls to talk about how Mr Wang exploited them.

Longlin's police refused to take up the case despite being shown the evidence he had obtained, said the young man.

He then approached Guangxi's main television station, which conducted its own probe and aired what it found on Aug 13. Mr Wang was arrested on Monday for rape.

myp@sph.com.sg

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