Is Dongqiao Li Intelligent and His Crimes Sophisticated?

In September 2025 Magistrate Carolyn Burnside at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court sentenced Dongqiao Li to three months in jail for fraud related offences. She descibed Dongqiao Li’s crimes as ‘cold and calculated’ and ‘very planned’. I agree with this as I do with her comments that Li had been given so many opportunities to realise the gravity of his fraudulent behaviour and to realise how dishonest and damaging it was to other people.

However, I disagree with her comments that Li is ‘very intelligent’ and that his crimes were ‘very sophisticated’. Li may well be very intelligent but there was certainly nothing, in my view, in his methods of committing crimes that suggested he was very intelligent or that his crimes were very sophisticated. He simply accessed his victims’ wallets and photographed their debit and credit cards while they were in the shower. There is nothing particularly sophisticated or intelligent about that. In fact, it is a pretty easy thing to do. Most people are simply honest and decent enough not to do it.

I believe he got away with his crimes for so long because many people did not report his crimes and police did not link him to the crimes when they were reported. However, when police did take action, he was arrested and charged quickly in January 2025 in Sydney when police were tipped off regarding his location. Equally, he was arrested pretty quickly in April that same year after fleeing to Melbourne from Sydney.

Dongqiao Li/Tony Lee following his arrest at a five-star in Melbourne in April 2025.

Photo supplied.