Chinese debtor undergoes plastic surgery to avoid paying $3.5 million.

A Chinese woman underwent plastic surgery, completely changing her appearance to escape a $3.5 million debt, but she still couldn't get away with it.

A cosmetic surgery procedure in China. Photo: Caixin

The woman, identified asZhu Najuan lives in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, central China. Zhu has undergone cosmetic surgery.He changed his appearance and fled the area to avoid paying a debt of 25 million yuan (US$3.5 million), Xinhua reported on July 26.

After a Wuhan court ruled that Ms. Zhu had to fulfill her debt obligations, the 59-year-old woman fled to the southeastern city of Shenzhen.

"We were very surprised when we arrived at the scene (to arrest the suspect)," a police officer in Shenzhen said, "She looked like she was only about 30 years old and very different from the photos we had."

Ms. Zhu told the police thatShe used the identity cards of several different people to buy train tickets to travel from one province to another, and also used credit cards, the kind of bank cards that allow spending now and paying later, to pay for cosmetic surgery.

The city of Wuhan is implementing a campaign to crack down on debt evasion crimes and has arrested 186 people for debt evasion in the first half of this year.

According to Reuters, while China is encouraging personal consumer lending, authorities are grappling with the growing debt burden among households. Last year, this total debt was estimated to reach around 50% of China's GDP, more than doubling in less than a decade.

Many localities in China have implemented measures to address this significant challenge. For example, Jiangsu province has compiled a list of individuals unable to repay their personal credit debts, and anyone who contacts these individuals is instructed by the authorities to "urge this person to fulfill their debt repayment obligations."

According to VNE