Khabor Wala Desk
Published: 14th July 2026, 11:24 PM
LAS VEGAS — A 33-year-old woman has pleaded guilty in a Nevada court to orchestrating a vast matrimonial fraud scheme, admitting she married 14 different men simultaneously to bankroll a severe gambling addiction. Ziaying Chen, who operated under a web of assumed identities, successfully extracted hundreds of thousands of dollars from her unsuspecting husbands. She now faces sentencing following a comprehensive investigation by federal and state law enforcement agencies.
The elaborate operational network unravelled following Chen’s arrest in 2024. Investigators revealed that between March 2019 and her eventual detention, Chen systematically obtained 14 distinct marriage licences across Clark County, Nevada. Operating primarily under the alias ‘Vicky Liang’, she targeted vulnerable men, rapidly moving from initial introductions to formal marriage proposals within a matter of months.
Once the legal unions were formalised, Chen initiated a calculated emotional ruse. She routinely informed her new spouses that immediate family members residing in China had fallen critically ill, necessitating urgent financial assistance for life-saving medical treatments. Convinced by these fabrications, her husbands collectively transferred significant sums of money. Individual losses were substantial; one victim reported handing over $40,000 under the impression he was funding emergency medical care, only for Chen to abruptly terminate all marital communications immediately after the bank transfer cleared.
The legal simplicity of securing a marriage licence in Las Vegas allowed a single fraudster to construct an unprecedented multi-tiered marital deception.
Financial tracking software and bank audits subsequently exposed that none of the extracted capital was dispatched overseas. Instead, the funds were funnelled directly into the high-limit gaming rooms of the luxurious Wynn Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Police intelligence units discovered that Chen’s gambling compulsion extended far beyond the stolen funds, with records indicating she lost in excess of $300,000 at the casino tables within a single twelve-month period alone. During official police interrogations, Chen candidly admitted that a single fraudulent marriage could yield up to $20,000 in immediate cash, describing Las Vegas as the ideal operational centre due to its famously swift marriage laws.
Appearing in court on 9 July, Chen pleaded guilty to multiple counts of felony bigamy and grand larceny involving the attempted theft of sums exceeding $100,000. In exchange for her formal admission of guilt, prosecutors agreed to dismiss several additional high-level felony charges. Furthermore, the state has agreed to recommend a sentence of probation rather than immediate custodial confinement.
Under Nevada state legislation, the statutory penalties for bigamy carry a prison term of one to four years, whilst large-scale grand larceny can command a sentence ranging from one to 20 years behind bars. However, due to the binding nature of the judicial compromise negotiated between the defence and the prosecution, legal analysts anticipate she may avoid a lengthy prison sentence entirely when the court delivers its final verdict on 20 August.
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