Hong Kong - A 22-year-old Chinese gigolo who tried to blackmail his wealthy married Hong Kong lover with a video of them having sex began serving a two-year jail sentence Saturday.

Peng Jun threatened to expose the affair using a secretly filmed video unless the 50-year-old woman gave him 1 million Hong Kong dollars (129,000 US dollars).

Peng, from China's poverty-stricken Hunan province, met the woman in 2007 at a nightclub in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese border city where Hong Kongers regularly go for entertainment and affairs.

The pair met for regular trysts but when the relationship began to fade earlier this year, Peng tried to extort money from her. She alerted Hong Kong police who arrested Peng.

At a hearing Friday, Peng was sentenced to jail for two years after pleading guilty to blackmail at Hong Kong's District Court.

Wealthy Hong Kong men and women regularly cross the border to neighbouring southern China, and many men in particular maintain lovers in or near the border city of Shenzhen. (dpa)