A day after Christmas in 2020, a 28-year-old Chinese man lifted his sleeping ex-girlfriend’s eyelids, scanned her iris to unlock Alipay and transferred $24,000 to pay off his gambling debts

A day after Christmas 2020, a 28-year-old Chinese man who was drowning in debt from gambling and had broken up recently, wanted to meet her sick girlfriend. He went to her home and then allegedly tricked her into sleep, then he used his ex’s fingerprint to unlock her phone, then lifted her iris to unlock her Alipay account and transferred around $24,000 from her digital wallet.

The bizarre case of stealing happened in Nanning, a city in southern China near the Vietnam border. According to Nanning Evening News, the man, surnamed Huang, visited his former girlfriend, surnamed Dong, on December 26, 2020, to discuss a long-overdue repayment. As per the outlet, he had borrowed some money from her when they were dating.

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Dong was not well at that time, and Huang prepared food and gave her a “cold medicine”. As per later reporting from CCTV News, the medicine that Huang prepared for his ex made her ‘abnormal and dizzy’. Then she went back to her room and fell asleep.

“The defendant Huang Mouhui took advantage of the victim Dong Mou's unconscious state to unlock her mobile phone with her fingers,” the outlet said, then opened “Dong Mou's eyes, logged in to the victim Dong Mou's Alipay account, and change the relevant (payment) password, and then transferred money through Alipay.” He allegedly took her phone with him, which Dong found out the next morning and reported to the police.

Huang transferred 154,147 yuan, approximately $24,000, from her Alipay balance, credit services, and bank accounts. He used the money to cover his gambling debts. Huang was arrested in April 2021.

A court in Nanning's Xingning District sentenced him to three years and six months in prison and fined him 20,000 yuan. It also ordered him to compensate Dong for her financial losses and return the things he had stolen.

However, a fact-check published by Yangcheng Evening News on December 13, 2021, found that the court judgment confirmed he had accessed Alipay using facial recognition but did not explain precisely how he did

Although multiple outlets, including the South China Morning Post, said that he lifted her eyelid to scan her iris, the fact-check report said that the judgment did not mention the eyelid detail. It also noted that the original Nanning Evening News report, published on December 12, 2021, did not describe him lifting her eyelids or even mention facial recognition.