Chinese relatives marry each other in alleged housing scam

Eleven members of a Chinese family staged 23 marriages in two weeks in a scam to get free housing, according to state media.

Officials were offering 40-square-metre flats to residents in a village near Lishui in eastern Zhejiang province, where homes were being demolished to make way for an urban renewal project.

CNN reports that when a man called Pan heard about the compensation scheme, he swiftly re-married his ex-wife who lived in the village in order to qualify. He then divorced her again six days later.

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Soon, the family were performing more marriages. Pan married his sister and her sister-in-law, ultimately registering three marriages at the Ministry of Civil Affairs three times in just one week.

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Then his father married several relatives, including his own mother. After each wedding, they registered as residents of the village, before filing for divorce. The Daily Mail says the “cunning” family “got into the act for a total of 23 weddings and divorces”.

However, the committee overseeing the village’s redevelopment eventually noticed what was happening and filed a complaint with police.

People’s Daily reports that all 11 members of the family have been arrested for alleged fraud. Four were detained, with others released on bail, as authorities continue to investigate the incidents.

The authorities ruled that though Chinese civil law does not limit the number of marriages and divorces an individual is entitled to, the family’s actions were illegal because they were used to defraud the government.

The impudence of the family has been widely commented upon on social media. “Even screenwriters would not dare to create a plot like this,” wrote one person on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

Another remarked: “There are obviously loopholes in the system. Can you just blame the family for being greedy?”