Inset: A fake passport allegedly used by Jiaying Chen (Las Vegas Metro Police Department). Background: The Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas, NV (Google Maps).
A Chinese woman who allegedly ran a marriage scam out of Nevada is expected to plead guilty a month after she was caught by authorities.
Prosecutors said Jiaying Chen, 33, is expected to enter a guilty plea at an upcoming court appearance in Las Vegas, Nevada, which will result in convictions for bigamy and obtaining money under false pretenses in excess of $100,000.
According to an arrest report obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Chen scammed more than a dozen men into marrying her and giving her large sums of money. Between 2019 and 2024, Chen applied for 14 marriage licenses at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau, and seven marriage certificates were issued.
Local Fox affiliate KVVU reported that Chen is currently married to six different men.
Detectives with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department arrested Chen on June 4, saying that they intercepted another scam marriage. KVVU reported that the detectives received a tip that Chen was meeting a man at a Las Vegas restaurant to discuss getting married.
Police said that after they arrested Chen, they found a U.S. passport and a Nevada driver”s license that had Chen’s picture but displayed the name “Vicky Liang.” A search for that name matching the information on both documents did not yield any results with the Department of Motor Vehicles. However, a search for the alias yielded several results at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau. The fake documents were provided as identification for eight marriage applications.
According to police, most of those applications were filed between April and June of this year. The Clark County Marriage License Bureau flagged Chen’s applications to police in 2024, and she was arrested. She posted bond and never showed up to court again.
When police spoke to the men Chen married, they found a pattern: Chen would allegedly connect with men on social media and dating apps, and after a short time, she would suggest getting married. Chen would eventually ask for thousands of dollars, claiming that she wanted to send the money to sick relatives in China, according to the allegations.
After receiving the money, Chen would allegedly either annul the marriage or simply cut off all contact with the husband. One man gave Chen $40,000, another gave her $23,000, and a third gave her $20,000. Another of Chen’s victims said he and his family saved up $30,000 after Chen said she wanted to buy a house. No one got their money back.
One victim told police that two weeks after Chen got her five-figure sum from him, she told him she “didn’t want to be married anymore to him,” per the arrest report.
Not all the men followed through on getting married to Chen, police said when they questioned her in 2024. Chen told police at the time that she would file for marriage licenses, but some of those men did not pay her. Those applications did not yield marriage certificates.
While one victim annulled his marriage to Chen after finding out about her other husbands, some of her most recent victims have no intention of cutting ties with her. Police said one man, whose marriage license was issued on April 23, said he was still married to Chen. Another man, whose license was issued on May 21, gave Chen $30,000 and plans to stay married to her.
Chen also told police that she targeted men in Las Vegas because “it is so easy to get married” there.
According to the arrest report, police said Chen had lost in excess of $300,000 at the Wynn casino, and it “appears the money she has obtained goes to gambling and not relatives overseas.”
Chen is currently in custody at the Clark County Correctional Center, where she is being held on $100,000 bond.
