A 28-year-old man in China has been convicted of stealing $24,000 by lifting his sleeping ex-girlfriend’s eyelids to outsmart her cellphone’s facial recognition system, according to media reports.

He was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison and fined the equivalent of $3,100 for stealing from his ex’s mobile payment account, The Times of London reported earlier this month, citing court documents and the Chinese state-run newspaper the Nanning Evening News.

The man, identified only by his surname, Huang, went to the sick woman’s apartment a year ago and gave her food, as well as medicine that made her sleepy, the Times reported.

After she fell asleep, he reportedly pressed her finger to her phone to unlock it. Then he lifted her eyelids to unlock her Alipay app using facial recognition, the Times said, before changing her password and transferring money from her account to his.

When the woman received notices about mysterious bank transfers the following morning, she alerted the police. Huang was arrested in April. He was found guilty of theft by using secret methods to steal another person’s property, according to the Times.

The report, which alarmed cellphone users, apparently went viral in China over the weekend.

An Alipay representative told news outlet Yishou Video that the company would compensate users in rare cases of theft, Vice reported Tuesday. The representative also urged users to employ various available security blocks on their accounts, according to Vice.