Image copyright News.163.com Image caption The women discovered each other when they rushed to hospital after Mr Yuan's accident

A Chinese man who was caught cheating on 17 girlfriends at once has been arrested for fraud.

The man from Hunan province made headlines last month when all 17 women discovered each other when they rushed to his hospital bedside.

The allegation of fraud relates to sums of money which he regularly took from the deceived women, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The women set up an online chat group called "revenge alliance", SCMP said.

It was on this chat group that they discovered he would ask some of his girlfriends for money every month, the paper said.

The man, identified only as Mr Yuan from the city of Changsha, in Hunan province, is reported to have had a child with one of the women and had been planning a wedding with another.

Awkward meeting

The reality that he had been dating all the women for the same time, some of them for years, came to light when doctors contacted his loved ones after he had an accident last month.

"I was really worried when I heard that he was in hospital," Xiao Li, who had been seeing Mr Yuan for 18 months, told the local Xiaoxiang Chen Bao paper at the time.

"But when I started seeing more and more beautiful girls show up, I couldn't cry any more."

When the story of his multiple girlfriends first came to light, thousands of comments were posted on social media about Mr Yuan's exploits, some admiring his ability to "multi-task".