Dating apps build a business around catfishing older men

(By Caixin journalists Qin Jianhang and Cai Xinyi)

A dating app that marketed itself as a way to meet people nearby used a “chat-to-earn” business model to weave female chat operators across China into an organised scam targeting middle-aged and older men.

In the second half of 2023, a dating app called Zhilian began operating. Women were recruited and trained as chat operators.

More than two years later, courts found that they had committed fraud by using manipulated profile photos, fabricated personas of single young women and false claims of living nearby.

The operators pretended to build emotional ties with male users, then induced them to buy virtual gifts on the app by promising access to WeChat contacts or an in-person meeting.

Court rulings published by China Judgments Online in late April 2026 laid out the scheme. Prosecutors in Keqiao district, in the eastern city of Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, said the case involved more than 34 million RMB (US$5 million) and more than 7,000 victims, many of them middle-aged men or seniors. Many didn’t realise they had been defrauded until the case broke. More than 100 defendants have been sentenced so far.

Police warnings have made clear that the industrialised practice is closely linked to romance and dating scams. Once fabricated identities and false pretexts are used to obtain money — and the cumulative amount reaches a legal threshold — the conduct can constitute fraud.

Fraud cases involving dating apps are among the clearest examples. Court judgements in the Zhilian case and others suggest that the central business model of these one-on-one paid dating apps is to exploit emotional needs, create an urge to top up an account and turn every apparent advance in a relationship into another payment.

The dating illusion

Zhilian promoted itself as an app for meeting people in the same city or nearby. But prosecutors told Caixin that the “local dating” pitch was largely a facade. It was designed to attract men looking for offline romantic relationships.

The app’s design also tilted the game. Women’s locations were hidden by default while men’s were displayed accurately. That allowed female users to follow the lead of male users and pose as someone living in the same city.

More important, Zhilian was crowded with female chat operators recruited either directly by a platform or through intermediaries to pose as an ordinary female user. Her role was to use conversation to induce male users to top up their accounts and send virtual gifts, from which she receives a share.

In short, the operators weren’t on the app to date. They were there to make money.

According to investigators, the female chat operators on Zhilian ranged from their 20s to their 50s, though many were in their 30s and 40s. Operators in their 20s often claimed to be in their 30s. The app’s male users were predominantly in their 50s and 60s, and operators believed that claiming to be too young would discourage those men from chatting with them.

The women tailored their stories to each man. If a man said he was single, the operator would say she was single, too. If he said he was married but looking for a lover, she might say that her marriage was unhappy and that she was looking for an affair, according to prosecutors.

Text, voice and video chats on Zhilian all required payment. But the cost of conversation was low compared with the amount users could spend on virtual gifts. The operators’ ultimate goal was therefore to persuade male users to send gifts.

Playing on the expectation of meeting someone nearby, operators told men that they needed to raise their intimacy score by buying gifts before contact details could be unlocked. To make the pitch more convincing, some operators sent fake screenshots suggesting that they, too, had topped up their accounts to make an in-person meeting possible.

How the scam worked

According to court records, communications between the principal offender surnamed Li and a defendant surnamed Jin showed that the two had been discussing social “voice room” projects as early as around 2020 and both understood the fraud model behind fake local dating apps.

In the second half of 2023, Li acquired and registered related companies, bought an app code and hired a technical team to operate and maintain Zhilian. Li assigned Jin to contact offline promoters and handle complaints and refunds.

Jin recruited female operators through intermediaries including a person surnamed Deng who knew Zhilian was operating illegally, according to court records. Caixin learned that the case involved at least 150 female chat operators.

Guilds acted as intermediaries between the app and the operators. They recruited, trained and managed the chat operators. Some were professionals. Others were mothers seeking part-time income while caring for children, only to be gradually drawn into a fraud.

Wang Cheng, a senior partner at Beijing Yingke Law Firm’s Hefei office who has handled the Zhilian case, said platforms typically worked with promoters to organise chat operators and establish guilds.

Revenues were divided through a hierarchy of platforms, guild leaders and chat operators. In the Zhilian case, operators received 40% of the amounts topped up by male users.

Unravelling the scheme

Unlike scam apps distributed on the black market, Zhilian operated behind a registered company and had the appearance of an ordinary dating service. That allowed it to be listed in mobile app marketplaces.

However, in November 2023, a third-party company conducting risk monitoring for app stores flagged potential fraud risks on Zhilian.

It found that female users, whose real-time locations weren’t displayed, were telling male users that they were physically nearby. The behaviour involved deceptive and inducive language designed to drive male spending, according to the ruling. As a result, the app was later removed from distribution.

In response, Li directed staff to restore certain features of the app and to provide false remediation reports to evade the app store risk controls. He then managed to resume the app’s operation.

However, in April 2024, as Li and others tried to avoid investigation by clearing chat records on external platforms and deleting Zhilian’s backend data, police intervened before all the data could be erased.

From August 2025 through May 2026, the Keqiao District People’s Court handed down verdicts. Four core defendants, including Li, received prison sentences ranging from seven to 12 years and fines of 100,000 RMB to 500,000 RMB.

More than 100 other defendants were sentenced to terms ranging from one year to three years and six months — some suspended — and fined 10,000 RMB to 30,000 RMB.

Li and three others appealed. In February 2026, the Shaoxing Intermediate People’s Court rejected the appeals and upheld the original rulings. Other defendants await trial. Authorities have also recovered more than 18 million RMB so far.

A growing business of deception

The Zhilian case isn’t an isolated example. Similar cases have surfaced in recent years, often involving large numbers of defendants.

In 2024, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that police in Jixi, a city in northeastern Heilongjiang province, dismantled a criminal group that used local dating software for telecom fraud. The case involved 220 million RMB, more than 40,000 female host accounts and 426 suspects.

The company owner, surnamed Yin, set up 16 companies using the identities of friends and relatives, according to the report. The companies launched and promoted more than 70 apps in app stores, all marketed as services for “local dating” or “chatting with beautiful women”.

Caixin learned that the female hosts in that case were also chat operators. Some were recruited and trained through guilds, others registered after being drawn to the apps themselves. With hundreds of people implicated, the cases were handled separately, and many were ultimately convicted.

One victim, surnamed Zhang, born in 1969, told Caixin that he used one of the apps during the Covid-19 pandemic while looking for a spouse. He spent more than 200,000 RMB on account top-ups and virtual gifts. After receiving the gifts, the women he chatted with gradually disappeared. Promised in-person meetings never happened.

The women often urged him to buy virtual gifts to demonstrate affection or sincerity, he said. Some would send him virtual gifts first, creating an appearance of good faith. He later learned that the women could send those gifts without paying for them.

Zhang had been divorced for years and ran a business alone, making it difficult to meet someone offline. He eventually married after getting set up through acquaintances, but the money he lost has not been recovered.

Cai Xinyi is an intern at Caixin Media.

This article was first published by Caixin Global as “In Depth: Dating Apps Build a Business Around Catfishing Older Men”. Caixin Global is one of the most respected sources for macroeconomic, financial and business news and information about China.

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