Chinese debtor undergoes plastic surgery to avoid paying $3.5 million

A Chinese woman had plastic surgery, completely changing her appearance to escape a debt of 3.5 million USD but still could not escape.

A cosmetic surgery in China. Photo: Caixin

The woman, identified asZhu Najuan, lives in Wuhan city, Hubei province, central China. Zhu had plastic surgery,changed his appearance and fled the area to avoid paying a debt of 25 million yuan ($3.5 million), Xinhua reported on July 26.

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

"We were 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 thatused the identity cards of many different people to buy train tickets from one province to another, and used credit cards, the type of bank cards that allow you to spend now and pay later, to have cosmetic surgery.

Wuhan City is launching a campaign to crack down on debt evasion crimes and has arrested 186 debt defaulters in the first half of this year.

As China encourages personal lending, authorities are facing a growing debt problem among households, which last year was estimated to have reached about 50% of China’s GDP, more than doubling in less than a decade, according to Reuters.

Many localities in China have taken measures to deal with this significant challenge. For example, Jiangsu province has created a list of people who are unable to pay their personal credit debts, according to which anyone who calls these individuals will be told by the authorities to "Urge this person to fulfill their debt obligations".

According to VNE