Crime in China

A man who was kidnapped as a child has been reunited with his parents after 32 years, bringing an end to one of China’s most notorious abduction cases. Mao Yin was two in 1988 when he disappeared in Xian, the capital of the northern province of Shaanxi, and was sold to another family who raised him as their own son. Mao, who was renamed Gu Ningning by his adoptive parents, was reunited with his mother and father – Li Jingzhi and Mao Zhenjing – on Monday at a press conference organized by the police and shown live on the state broadcaster CCTV. Mao, who now runs a home decoration business, was tracked down in early May by Xian police. They used facial recognition technology to analyze old ch

A man in northwest China has been detained after his 79-year-old mother was buried alive. The woman, who was partially paralyzed, was rescued after three days and is in a stable condition in a hospital in Shaanxi province, police said. Prosecutors in Jingbian county said the woman’s son, a 58-year-old identified only by his surname Ma, had been charged with attempted murder. On Tuesday his wife told local police that Ma had taken the bedridden woman named Wang away on a cart and she had not returned home. Police said the man had confessed to burying her in the woods and she was rescued later that day. “Ma was there when police were digging up the two-meter deep grave. He didn’t say anything

Chen Xiaobai, a graphic designer from Changsha city in southern China’s Hunan province, has been running a WeChat messaging group since the beginning of February called The Victims of Online Masks Fraud. The group has attracted about 170 members, all of whom had been cheated out of money while trying to buy face masks online to protect themselves or other people from the spread of the novel coronavirus. Online fraud has a long history, but fears about the coronavirus outbreak and a shortage of masks have brought swindlers a fresh pool of potential victims among China’s 800 million internet users. With the demand for masks far exceeding the supply many have no choice but to turn to private c

A Chinese man was sentenced to death over the weekend for fatally stabbing two officials at a roadblock set up to contain the spread of the coronavirus in early February. A court in the southwestern province of Yunnan handed down the death sentence to 23-year-old Ma Jianguo on Sunday for the stabbings, which occurred on February 6. In a statement, the Intermediate People’s Court in Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture said: “Ma ignored national laws when Yunnan was at the most critical stage of a public health emergency. [He] ignored virus control policies, leading to the serious consequence of two lives being taken away. Such behavior is considered intentional murder.” Ma was traveling

Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai has been found guilty of providing intelligence overseas, almost five years after he was first detained by Chinese authorities. Gui was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment and deprivation of political rights for five years by a Chinese court on Monday. A statement by the Intermediate People’s Court of Ningbo said Gui would not appeal at the end of the trial. Gui, a Swedish national, ran Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong – an outlet known for selling gossipy titles about Chinese Communist Party officials.  He was one of five booksellers who disappeared in 2015. The Monday court statement also said Gui “agreed to restore his Chinese citizenship” in 2018, a move B

The last thing Shanghai man Tony Qian expected while walking with his wife on grassland below the 28-floor residential buildings of their community was to be hit by a falling piece of dog excrement. And yet, as he looked up to see where the foul missile had come from, he saw a tissue fluttering to the ground which, on closer inspection, was stained with the same muck which had struck him on the shoulder. Qian was lucky. There have been numerous reports in recent years of critical injuries and deaths caused by people flinging dangerous items – including a bicycle, stroller and even a kitchen knife – from their high-rise windows. But his efforts to bring the poo perpetrator to justice went now

A founding pastor of China’s Early Rain Covenant Church has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a Chinese court for inciting subversion of state power and other crimes. Wang Yi was detained in December 2018 along with other senior figures in the prominent underground Christian church during overnight raids across various districts of Chengdu, the southwestern city where the church was founded. On Monday, the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court released its judgment, which said the pastor was also convicted of illegal business operations. In addition to the jail term, Wang would be stripped of his political rights for three years. Personal assets valuing $7,000 would also be confiscated.

China’s extrajudicial detention of sex workers or their customers, known as “custody and education (C&E),” is set to be abolished in what experts called a long-overdue move. The detention system has been used to crack down on prostitution, which is illegal on the mainland, since the 1980s. Sex workers and their clients could be detained for up to two years without trial in centers overseen by the police. More than 300,000 people were detained using C&E between 1987 and 2000, according to a report by Asia Catalyst, an advocacy group focused on health issues. Although the government does not publish regular numbers of detainees, mainland Chinese media have reported a steady decrease in detenti

American teacher Kim Lee has been hailed as a role model for domestic violence victims in China since 2011, when she initiated divorce proceedings against her celebrity husband in a landmark case that made legal history.  But Lee’s status as a voice for abused women came under attack last week, when she said she had forgiven her ex-husband. “My [ex] husband is a flawed person. His violent acts are beyond doubt, illegal and wrong,” she wrote in a long post in Chinese on the Twitter-like Weibo on Thanksgiving.  “But he is also the one who smiled like a child while feeding goldfish… more importantly, he is the father of my three lovely daughters.” The post has gone viral and shocked internet u

A Chinese woman accused of murdering seven people, including a three-year-old girl, has been captured after 20 years on the run. Lao Rongzhi, 45, allegedly killed seven people together with her boyfriend Fa Ziying over a three-year period. While Fa was caught by police in the eastern city of Hefei in July 1999, Lao managed to escape and had been living under a false identity since then. Fa initially refused to tell police anything about his girlfriend and later provided false information that helped her cover her tracks. He eventually confessed to kidnapping and killing seven people and was executed in December 1999 at the age of 35.  Police said last Friday that Lao had been arrested at a