Around the nation: Phone scammer took millions from rural elderly over five years
Also: Itinerant beggars demand to be sent to Hainan for the winter; Fishermen pose as Somali pirates - in the Yangtze estuary
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 01 February, 2015, 10:13pm
UPDATED : Monday, 02 February, 2015, 12:30am
Two homeless men in Hefei, which saw snow at the weekend, asked a local shelter to buy them rail tickets to tropical Hainan to spend the winter. Photo: Xinhua
ANHUI
Nice try
Two homeless men in Hefei , who had twice rejected offers of a bed from the city's homeless shelter, returned the shelter yesterday asking for two train tickets to tropical Hainan as they said the city was too cold for them, Ahwang.cn reports. The men, in their 40s, had come from Heilongjiang to Anhui to beg. As one had a cold, and the other's shoes were broken, they asked to go to Hainan for winter. The shelter refused but bought them tickets back to Heilongjiang, the coldest province in China.
Game of owns
Hefei man Li Xin is suing a mainland online-game company and another player after his account was frozen a day he bought it for 9,999 yuan (HK$12,540), the Anhui Shangbao reports. Li bought the account from a third party last year, but the next day found the account had been frozen. The game company refused to activate it because another player had claimed the account, saying it had been stolen. Li claimed he was the victim and is seeking 7,215 yuan in compensation from the firm.
GUANGDONG
Relatively ugly
A 65-year-old Guangzhou woman has received 5,000 yuan in compensation from her 38-year-old relative after fighting with him over a tree and dousing him with liquid manure made from excrement, the New Express reports. The woman told a court that her relative took four gang members to her yard threatening to remove a tree planted on his land and injured her finger badly. The man denied the claim, saying she attacked his father. The court sentenced both to five days' detention but ordered the man to pay the woman 5,000 yuan.
Coma after massage
A Shenzhen man named Fang remains in a coma after a 35-minute Chinese-style massage, the Jing Bao reports. Fang's brother said staff at the massage centre thought Fang was asleep about an hour after his massage, but only realised something was wrong two hours after that. Fang underwent surgery for a cerebral haemorrhage after his carotid artery was damaged by intense stimulation or a strike.
GUANGXI
Miraculous escape
A woman in Wuzhou escaped unscathed after she was struck by a speeding motorcycle as she rushed to a catch a bus, Liaoning Television reports. But the motorcyclist is in a coma after he was thrown metres in the crash. The woman got up immediately as if nothing had happened and continued walking towards the bus without paying attention to the crash scene.
Deadly double standard
A Nanning man beat his wife to death for having an affair while he was working in Guangdong, Modern Life Daily reports. After hearing rumours about his wife, the man returned home and found other men's clothes there. However, the husband admitted to police that he had affairs in Guangdong.
FUJIAN
Four suspected of rape
Four men, aged from 59 to 72, have been arrested on suspicion of rape after an 18-year-old mentally retarded woman in Zhangzhou was found to be seven months pregnant, the Haixia Daobao reports. The woman did not know who the father was but the men admitted they had lured her with pocket money several times.
Boy, 12, on the run
A 12-year-old boy who did not want to return to his hometown slipped away from his migrant worker father at Zhangzhou train station and was not found for 12 hours, the Strait City Daily reports. The pair were about to return to Sichuan for Lunar New Year.
JIANGSU
Car hijacking backfires
A man who hijacked a woman's car and seized her daughter as she picked her up from primary school has been arrested two days after the event, the Modern Express reports. The woman went to check the boot of the car and found the man inside, with the girl, when she returned. He ordered the mother to drive to a bank to get money. Once out of the car, the mother raised the alarm and the man fled. Police said the unemployed man's motive for the crime was to get some money for a birthday party for his six-year-old son.
'Pirates' of penury
Nine fishermen from Lianyungang have been jailed for between five to 11 years in Nantong for robbery, the Yangtse Evening Post reports. Since 2012, the nine wore makeup and pretended to be Somali pirates as they robbed fishing boats in the Yangtze River estuary. It is not known if any of the victims actually believed they were east African pirates, but they paid them up to 50,000 yuan nonetheless. The nine told police they could hardly earn a living from fishing.
SHAANXI
Marriage turns icy
To save his marriage, a 25-year-old man in
Baoji had to run naked around a busy block in the city three times, on his wife's orders, Xinhua reports. When police arrived at the scene, the man was covered in a jacket given to him by passers-by. Police had called his family to take him home.
Dying driver calls daughter
A 46-year-old woman died after driving her Citroen off an icy road into a fast-flowing river in Baoji, the Huashang Daily reports. As the car sank, in the last moments of her life, the woman phoned her daughter to tell her about the accident and to take care of herself. When police arrived at the scene minutes later, the car was submerged and the woman had died.
SICHUAN
Mechanic taught car thief
A car mechanic in Xinjin county has been jailed for two years for teaching a man he knew was a thief how to start a cars without a key, the Chengdu Economic Daily reports. The thief initially towed stolen cars to the garage to have them started but then asked the mechanic to teach him how to hotwire the vehicles, the report said.
Phone scammer caught
A Chengdu man has been arrested for phone scams that netted him millions of yuan from elderly victims over five years, the Chengdu Economic Daily reports. The man called hundreds of rural residents every day, pretending to be their child. He falsely told them that he had found some money that he would transfer to them. He would later phone back saying that he had to give half of the money to other people, which the elderly victims would then send to him.
ZHEJIANG
Ex-boyfriend killed
A man was stabbed to death outside a flat in Hangzhou in a lovers triangle, the Xiandai Jinbao reports. The victim was the former boyfriend of a female resident, who was living with her current boyfriend. When the victim called on the woman, the two men argued and the new boyfriend killed the old one. The couple were apprehended.
Mystery siege
Residents of Xihuatou village, Cixi , and police were tight-lipped after an alleged siege in which the local woman party chief was held hostage for a 50,000 yuan ransom yesterday, the Xiandai Jinbao reports. After two hours, the woman asked her husband to pay her captors 20,000 yuan, which they said was not enough. Villagers and officials refused to disclose further details. The woman was sent to hospital but her condition was not known.
