Woman married to 6 different men after scamming over a dozen to give her money for fake sick relatives so she could roll the dice: Cops

A striking tale of high-stakes deception unfolded in Las Vegas as details emerged about a woman who allegedly weaponized the promise of holy matrimony to fund a relentless addiction to casino gambling. Authorities revealed that 33-year-old Jiaying Chen systematically targeted over a dozen unsuspecting men, leading multiple victims down the aisle while simultaneously bleeding them of thousands of dollars under the guise of family emergencies.

Rather than supporting ailing relatives as she claimed, investigators discovered that Chen was funneling her ill-gotten fortunes directly into the high-limit rooms of premier Sin City resorts. The complex scheme eventually collapsed under the weight of coordinated law enforcement investigations, culminating in a striking courtroom appearance where the serial bride decided to face the music.

The Mastermind and Her Methods

According to reports filed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Jiaying Chen operated a calculated romance-and-theft ring spanning several years. Between March 2019 and May 2024, Chen actively submitted 14 different marriage applications to the Clark County Marriage License Bureau. While not every application resulted in a legal ceremony, she successfully walked away with seven valid marriage certificates during that initial timeframe.

Her operational strategy relied on digital hunting grounds. Chen frequently met her targets on various social media and dating applications, quickly escalating the digital interactions into intense romantic relationships. To build trust, she would intentionally target men who shared or respected her cultural background, mapping out her schemes around deep-seated familial values.

Within remarkably short spans of knowing her victims, Chen would plant the idea of marriage. In the fast-paced matrimonial ecosystem of Las Vegas, where licenses are issued quickly and waiting periods are virtually nonexistent, her targets easily fell for the whirlwind romance. However, obtaining the marriage certificate was never the end goal; it was simply the mechanism used to open the victims’ bank accounts.

Fabricated Tragedies and Cultural Exploitation

Once the knot was tied, Chen’s true objective came to light. Almost immediately following the weddings, she would present her new husbands with devastating news: a close family member in China had fallen critically ill and urgently required expensive medical treatments.

Detectives noted that Chen explicitly leveraged traditional cultural expectations regarding filial piety and familial obligation. Desperate to protect their new bride’s family, the husbands scrambled to provide the requested funds.

The financial damage inflicted upon individual victims was severe:

• One victim reported handing over $40,000 to assist with the treatment of Chen’s supposedly dying relative, money that completely vanished.
• Another husband recounted that immediately following their wedding ceremony, Chen requested $23,000 for medical emergencies; a mere two weeks after receiving the cash, she abruptly announced that she no longer wished to be married to him.
• A third victim fell prey to a longer-game variation of the con. After dating Chen for a year, she suggested they pool their money to purchase a house. Trusting his fiancé, the man and his immediate family scraped together $30,000 and handed it over. The moment the cash changed hands, Chen severed all communication and disappeared.

When later questioned by detectives about why she filed so many marriage applications without following through on all of them, Chen provided a chillingly transactional response, stating that not everyone paid, which is why they didn’t get the marriage certificate. She openly bragged to investigators that she could easily make up to $20,000 per marriage and targeted Las Vegas because the legal system made it incredibly easy to get married.

Chasing the Losses: The Casino Connection

While Chen painted a grim picture of family medical crises in Asia, her financial footprint pointed somewhere entirely different: the glittering casino floors of the Las Vegas Strip.

The stark reality was that Chen was a compulsive gambler chasing astronomical losses. Every dollar extracted from her trail of broken-hearted husbands was systematically fed into high-stakes casino games. The urgent medical crises were entirely fictitious, manufactured solely to fuel her addiction to rolling the dice.

As Chen bounced from casino to casino, her abandoned husbands were left to deal with the fallout. Because she simply vanished rather than obtaining legal divorces, many of her victims remained legally bound to her. While some filed for official court annulments upon realizing they had been swindled, others informed police that they were technically still married to their scammer.

The First Arrest, Escape, and Capture

The house of cards began to wobble in early 2024 when alert staff at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau noticed a pattern of highly unusual, repetitive filings under Chen’s name and flagged her to law enforcement. The Metropolitan Police Department launched a comprehensive investigation, culminating in her initial arrest in mid-2024 on multiple felony counts of bigamy and grand theft.

However, her time in custody was short-lived. After posting a required financial bond, Chen was released from jail pending trial. Rather than remaining compliant with court orders, she chose to run, disappearing into the shadows and triggering a multi-month manhunt.

Chen did not stop her operation while on the run. Instead, she doubled down, adopting the alias “Vicky Liang” and obtaining high-quality fraudulent identity documents, including a fake passport and a forged Nevada driver’s license. Under her new moniker, she went right back to work, submitting eight additional marriage license applications and successfully securing seven more marriage certificates.

Her run finally came to an end in June 2026, when tracking efforts by Las Vegas detectives successfully located her hiding out in the city. When officers moved in to make the arrest, they found her in possession of the forged documents, effectively ending her multi-year run as a serial bigamist.

Accountability in the Courtroom

On Tuesday, July 7, 2026, a heavily guarded Jiaying Chen appeared before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Rebecca Saxe at the Regional Justice Center. Standing alongside her defense attorney, Thomas Wells, the 33-year-old waived her right to a preliminary hearing, signaling a desire to bypass a lengthy, publicized trial.

Her defense counsel confirmed to the court that Chen had reached a formal negotiation with prosecutors. Under the terms of the legal agreement, she will officially plead guilty to two major felony charges: one count of bigamy and one count of obtaining money under false pretenses in an amount exceeding $100,000.

The resolution brings a sense of closure to a sprawling case that baffled local registry officials and devastated over a dozen men. Chen remains in custody as she awaits her formal sentencing hearing, where she faces significant time in state prison and hefty restitution orders aimed at paying back the massive sums she gambled away.