Hsu Shian-ming’s internet pitch got a lively response from women “interested in romantic liaisons”. The 55-year-old scammer convinced his victims that his old man was suffering from prostate cancer - a condition which meant he needed constant sex to stay alive.

The angels of mercy obliged, administering life-saving treatment to dad in various Taipei hotels. Pop’s cancer was evidently serious, because the women were “persuaded into unconventional sex acts varying from putting foreign objects in their private parts, anal sex, or threesomes”, the China Daily indelicately puts it.