- Imagine traveling with all this disgusting stuff in your luggage. Ew.
One of the most common dreams people have is casting off the shackles of everyday life and traveling around the world. And while that would be nice, the sad truth is that globetrotting requires a lot of money.
Unless, of course, you carry a handy stash of cockroaches and used condoms.
A 21-year-old Chinese man was recently arrested for a strange and, frankly, disgusting spree of scams. He had decided to leave school and go traveling.
He was quickly running out of money, though, so he came up with a way to score free accommodations. After booking a hotel room, he would sprinkle various gross things around it, from the aforementioned roaches and condoms to wads of hair and other stuff.
He would then raise a fuss with hotel management and threaten to expose their poor hygienic practices online — unless they waived his room fee. The scam worked like a charm and the man racked up potentially hundreds of free hotel nights.
However, just like the boy who cried wolf, the man repeated his trick one too many times. Hotels eventually caught on to his methods and collaborated with the police to catch the guy.
Travel Instead of Study
Chinese media has identified the man of our story by his last name, Jiang. He is a 21-year-old college student from the city of Taizhou on China’s eastern coast, according to South China Morning Post.
Well, he was supposed to be a college student, anyway. In September 2023, he decided university life wasn’t for him — he wanted to travel.
So, he got his tuition money, but he didn’t use it to enter a school. Instead, he packed his bags and began to travel all around China.
A couple of months into his trip, however, Jiang started running low on funds. After a cost analysis, he determined lodging was the biggest drain on his finances.
Thinking about how he could sleep in hotels for free, Jiang came up with a plan. It was ingenious and disgusting in equal measure.
He started hoarding dead cockroaches and other pests, used condoms, wads of hair, and a number of other revolting objects. After booking into a hotel, he would then place his props in the room wherever they seemed natural.
Then, he’d call the front desk complaining about the horrendous condition of his room and demanding to speak to the manager. Once the head honcho showed up, Jiang would point out the “proof” of the hotel’s poor hygiene and threaten to expose them to a sizeable online audience.
Jiang’s not an unreasonable, though. Should the hotel manager offer to move him to a different room and refund his fee, he would graciously agree to keep his mouth shut about the incident.
Hundreds of Hotel Rooms
Jiang’s scam worked shockingly well. According to Chinese police, he successfully defrauded 63 hotels over 10 months between November 2023 and August 2024.
That’s the number of fraud instances he has been charged with, anyway. However, investigations revealed that Jiang had booked into 380 hotels over the same period.
Not all of those scam attempts were successful, however. To maximize his chances of scoring free accommodations, Jiang would sometimes book rooms at three to five different hotels in one city and attempt his scam at all of them.
This safeguard, however, was what eventually led to Jiang’s arrest. His scheme fell apart after a hotel manager in the city of Linhai grew suspicious.
Knowing his hotel was immaculate, the manager got in touch with other major hotels in the area. To his surprise, most of them reported that a man had made claims of shockingly unhygienic conditions and demanded a free room in compensation.
After this revelation, Jiang’s jig was quickly up. The hotels got in touch with the police, who tracked down and arrested Jiang.
As they arrested him, the cops went through Jiang’s belongings. In them, they found 23 pre-prepared packages containing dead roaches and used condoms.
That’s a load of disgusting luggage. Then again, considering he would try his scam at multiple hotels on one day, we suppose… Preparing all the condoms on demand would’ve gotten exhausting.