A driving instructor has been arrested in Songjiang district for swindling more than 600,000 yuan ($96,600) from 146 students over three years, local police said Friday.

Police arrested the suspect, surnamed Fan, on April 8 after the driving school where he worked discovered that he had been collecting payments for driving lessons he never delivered, according to a press release from the Songjiang District Public Security Bureau.

Fan admitted that he had taken fees ranging from 4,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan from 146 students since the end of 2011, police said. He did not turn over the money to the school, but instead spent most of it on gambling, lottery tickets and a down payment on an apartment. 

In one typical case, a woman paid Fan 4,300 yuan at the end of 2012 for a driving course. Fan told her to wait for him downstairs in school's building while he paid the school on her behalf. He then returned and gave her a receipt bearing his signature. He promised that she could schedule to take her written test on traffic regulations the following January.

When it came time to schedule the exam, however, Fan told the student that it would have to be postponed due to a government policy change. The student called Fan several times in 2013, but each time he told her that she would have to wait because there were too many other students ahead of her.

Fan finally told her to go to the school on April 9. There she discovered that the school never received her payment, and she was not registered as a student.

She also learned there were many other students like her. The school had been getting complaints about Fan since the end of last year, police said.

When confronted with complaints, Fan initially returned the money. But as the complaints piled up, he became unreachable.

On March 18, several of Fan's students went to the school and found that its official stamp was different than the stamp on the receipts that Fan had given them. That's when the school contacted police.

Fan said that he often used the money he collected from new victims to refund previous students who were complaining too much. 

Some of Fan's students got refunds after complaining to the school.

Global Times