Zheng moved to Canada in 2006 and became a citizen in 2010 but still remembered what she describes as an authoritarian regime back in China.
So, in "total fear," she made her way to a Royal Bank branch on May 16, 2018, and wired $60,000 to the fraudsters.
Over the next two weeks, she sent three more wire transfers to Hong Kong, through three different banks, draining every cent her elderly father had saved over his lifetime and sent to her.
For almost three years, Zheng has kept secret the financial devastation — not even telling her elderly father, fearing it would have a severe impact on his health.
"Even just $10 means a lot to him," she said. "Can you imagine if I tell him I've lost all the money?"
Imagine being some riceman spending your entire life working 16 hours a day, breaking your back for poverty wages in a shitty Chinese factory with no safety regulations so that your daughter can use it to buy a condo and you can spend the last few years of your life living in Canada, and then your daughter loses it all in the span of a few hours.
What would you do?
So, in "total fear," she made her way to a Royal Bank branch on May 16, 2018, and wired $60,000 to the fraudsters.
Over the next two weeks, she sent three more wire transfers to Hong Kong, through three different banks, draining every cent her elderly father had saved over his lifetime and sent to her.
For almost three years, Zheng has kept secret the financial devastation — not even telling her elderly father, fearing it would have a severe impact on his health.
"Even just $10 means a lot to him," she said. "Can you imagine if I tell him I've lost all the money?"
Imagine being some riceman spending your entire life working 16 hours a day, breaking your back for poverty wages in a shitty Chinese factory with no safety regulations so that your daughter can use it to buy a condo and you can spend the last few years of your life living in Canada, and then your daughter loses it all in the span of a few hours.
What would you do?
