In a money-making venture, a Wuhan man called himself inspector Lei, established a fake interrogation room and even had a siren for his car

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

With his collection of handcuffs and the siren on his car, inspector Lei looked every bit the Chinese policeman.



His wardrobe was filled with the black blazers of a crime-busting bobby and his office contained an armory of stun guns for subduing the outlaws he claimed to hunt.

But inspector Lei was not all he seemed.

When police raided his home in the city of Wuhan last week – acting on a tip-off from his disgruntled girlfriend – they found a fake police station that had been meticulously crafted by the fraudster cop.

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Photographs published in a local newspaper showed a bust of Mao Zedong and a Chinese flag adorning the conman’s imitation interrogation room.

“With his disguise he was very deceptive,” Tang Hui, the real-life cop tasked with investigating the impersonator, was quoted as saying.



Lei reportedly used his alter ego as a moneymaking ruse. For at least two years, he sold falsified Public Security Bureau documents and warrants from his phony precinct.



Smelling a rat, friends of the fake officer’s girlfriend tried to warn her that her partner was bad news.

“Your boyfriend is not reliable,” one friend told her, according to the Chutian Metropolis Daily newspaper. “He always flirts with us online and is a total scoundrel.”



But Lei’s acting skills were apparently so convincing that those words of caution fell on deaf ears until last week when the woman – named only as Tingting – threatened to leave him.



Enraged, the counterfeit inspector vowed to post online a video of the couple having sex. Her response was to seek out a genuine officer of the law. Lei’s cover was blown.

During a search of his home-cum-interrogation centre, security officials uncovered a cache of forged documents, a GPS tracking device and a miniature surveillance camera, according to the newspaper report.



They also found a copy of The Story of the Stone, a classic work of 18th century Chinese literature that opens in a place known as the Land of Illusion.

“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true,” the book’s opening line reads. “Real becomes not-real where the unreal’s real.”



Additional reporting by Luna Lin

