China tycoon’s mistress contest ends in tragedy

THE loser of a bizarre talent contest drove her former lover and the man's four other mistresses off a cliff in eastern China's Shandong Province in an apparent fit of anger, killing herself and injuring the others.

The survivors told police the crash was an accident, but a letter left by the dead woman revealed the details of an unusual competition gone awry. According to the document, the businessman was going to lay off four of his five mistresses due to financial trouble. The women were allowed to vie for the remaining position by competing on their looks, their singing and speaking and their ability to drink alcohol, the Qingdao-based Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper reported yesterday.

The case dates back to December 6, when police in Qingdao received a report that a car had crashed through the guardrail of a mountain highway and plummeted into a deep valley. The female driver died at the scene while five others, including a man, were sent to a hospital.

Police thought at first it was simply a traffic accident involving friends on a leisure trip. But the parents of the dead woman, identified as a 29-year-old surnamed Yu, told police that a man surnamed Fan was to blame.

Yu left behind a letter that claimed she and the four other women were Fan's mistresses. Fan met Yu in 2000 in a Qingdao restaurant where she worked as a waitress, the report said. The Shanxi native reportedly became Fan's mistress shortly thereafter and lived with him in a two-room apartment bought by the man.

Fan, a married entrepreneur, also kept other four mistresses - two of whom were his employees and two his former clients, the report said.