Death to Chinese man for ant scam

[pool]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/15/china.ants.death.reut/index.html

Ok first, how a man could trick this many people into giving him this much money is amazing. Second, Wow I knew China is shady on many human rights issues but I had no clue you could be put to death for something like this, granted that is some major money involved.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@CNN.com

A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for conning people out of 3 billion yuan ($387 million) in a giant scam to breed ants, local media said on Thursday.

I initially scanned this as “a scam to breed giant ants,” and thought, “k3wl!!1”

[Sage_Rat]

@pool

Ok first, how a man could trick this many people into giving him this much money is amazing. Second, Wow I knew China is shady on many human rights issues but I had no clue you could be put to death for something like this, granted that is some major money involved.

The article says that a person commited suicide, so he’s probably setenced to death over that “murder.”

I heard, here in Japan, that there was a case where a hotel owner went to jail for the murder of a small child because he ignored a law mandating that turning doors have a sensor which stops them from continuing to try to turn when jammed (and thus suffocating the child.)

So it might be a local thing to take blame for fallout due to criminal activities and negligence as far as they can. (Or simply that it’s easier to get a conviction here.)

[China_Guy]

The perp scammed USD378 million dollars. Ya, so I’m not surprised at the outcome. There’s probably a lot more to this than in the article. Perp maybe a government official, may have scammed money from the government, likely did a lot of illegal things with the money, etc

[jjimm]

People get executed for fraud in China all the time.

Back in the 1990s a friend of mine was involved in a futures exchange investment setup in northern China. Two observations:

1. A lot of people had more money than they knew what to do with. One guy walked into the office with the RMB equivalent of $50,000 in cash. My buddy said “you do know this is an investment that can go down as well as up?” and the dude replied “normally I’d put this on a horse.”
2. When the investments did go down as well as up, some investors were very unhappy and raided the offices with heavies and blunt instruments several times to attempt to retrieve their cash.
3. Then when a government official lost money, the police raided the office and the entire operation was shut down, the boss-man arrested for fraud (on trumped up charges) and narrowly escaped without being executed. He got five years.

[Siam_Sam]

@China Guy

The perp scammed USD378 million dollars. Ya, so I’m not surprised at the outcome. There’s probably a lot more to this than in the article. Perp maybe a government official, may have scammed money from the government, likely did a lot of illegal things with the money, etc

I know it’s not uncommon for countries like China and Vietnam to execute for large-scale corruption. Considering the amount of money scammed, I’m not surprised he got the death sentence.

[China_Guy]

@jjimm

People get executed for fraud in China all the time.

Back in the 1990s a friend of mine was involved in a futures exchange investment setup in northern China.

You know of course that a futures exchange investment set up in China in the 1990’s would have been most likely highly illegal. I’m pretty sure it would still be.

[jjimm]

They allegedly had permission of the local government. Maybe they just had government guanxi.

[TokyoBayer]

@Sage Rat

I heard, here in Japan, that there was a case where a hotel owner went to jail for the murder of a small child because he ignored a law mandating that turning doors have a sensor which stops them from continuing to try to turn when jammed (and thus suffocating the child.)

There isn’t that law per se, which mandates this. However, the case involved the sensor of the revolving door not being adjusted correctly, which allowed the child to be killed. This was a case of criminal negligence. The owner didn’t go to prison, but the operator of the building did. Truely a sad affair.