A 41-year-old Chinese woman has been jailed for two years for a marriage scam in which she claimed to be the 26-year-old daughter of a former ambassador and swindled money from a 23-year-old university postgraduate student.

Xu Xiaoyun, who is from southwest China's Guizhou Province and has a 19-year-old son, was also fined 2,000 yuan (294.1 U.S. dollars) after being convicted of fraud, the Beijing News reported Wednesday.

The sentence was handed down at the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing Tuesday.

Xu met the man surnamed Fan, a postgraduate student at the prestigious Beijing-based Tsinghua University, at a party on Feb. 9, and they began cohabitating the next day, the court heard.

Xu told Fan she was the daughter of Qin Huasun, a former Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, and was a doctoral student at Tsinghua. Xu also told Fan she could help him get into Stanford University to further his studies, the court heard.

In the following days, Xu called Fan several times, pretending to be her parents and elder brother and urging Fan to marry Xu soon, the court heard. They held a wedding ceremony in Fan's hometown in central Henan Province on May 20.

Xu had repeatedly asked for a "cash gift" totaling 50,000 yuan from Fan's relatives and friends before their marriage, which raised Fan's suspicions, the court heard.

After the ceremony, Fan went back to Tsinghua to seek more information about Qin Ran, the name Xu had used for the scam, but he found there was no such a student, the court heard.

Fan called the police and Xu was detained on May 24.

Of the 50,000 yuan Xu had obtained, 20,000 was determined to be money she had swindled as the other 30,000 had been spent on the wedding ceremony and on daily necessities for the pair, the court heard.

Police found 11,400 yuan at Xu's place in May and gave it back to Fan. Xu was ordered to pay another 8,600 yuan to Fan.

Media reports have indicated that Xu and Fan had not legally married, although a wedding ceremony was held.

In China, couple must show their ID cards and "hukou ben" (household registration) when they apply for a marriage license from civil affairs authorities. As Xu had used a false name, Fan might have discovered her true identity earlier.

Fan could not be reached for comment Wednesday. He had graduated from Tsinghua and left Beijing.

Xu had been detained for four months in 2002 and was sentenced to a year and five months in jail in 2007, on both occasions for fraud.

After Tuesday's sentence, Xu told reporters she cheated others because she herself had bitter experiences of being swindled.

She said she would not lodge an appeal.

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