Results tagged “crime”

The latest step in a series of drunk driving crackdown, new national laws have been issued to punish DUIs. Besides harsher restrictions on "light" penalties and a lowering of the legal level of blood alcohol content (BAC), the laws now say that people who are willing catch a ride with a drunk driver can face penalties themselves.

An ex-employee of NBA China's Shanghai office has been detained for alleged involvement in the bribery scandal that engulfed several workers at Coca Cola's bottler, Shanghai Shenmei Beverage & Food Co. earlier this month. The former NBA staff member had been identified during a police probe of irregularities and was handed over to the Shanghai Municipal Prosecuratorate, police have confirmed.

Shanghai Daily has some startling statistics about drunk driving in our city - according to a study released yesterday, we have almost double the amount of fatal road accidents related to DUIs (8.3%) than that of the national average (4.16%). Last year, over 6% of traffic accidents in Shanghai were caused by drunk driving.

While Beijing might be trying to ensure the safety of its huge event with a crackdown on... well, everything, Shanghai's placing its bets on people loving money. The city's police said on Tuesday that it would offer rewards of up to 300,000RMB if people rat out serious crimes. Submit your tip and once it's confirmed as true, the informant will be rewarded based on the value of his information (hmmm, we wonder how they measure that value exactly). Anyone who purposely provides a false tip-off will also be held accountable (hmmm, we wonder how they'll figure out purposeful falsehoods). What they're especially interested in: terrorisms, violent crimes, organized crimes and serious economic crimes. If you know of anyone that might be committing these things during Expo time, dial 110 or send a letter to the police. The policy will be in effect until December 31, 2010. Source: Xinhua Photo from filemagazine

In one of the more bizarre incidents to come out of Beijing lately, especially with security gearing up for the National Day celebrations, a man armed with a knife went on a stabbing spree in the major commercial center of Dashilan. He killed two people and injured about a dozen more before being captured by police on patrol. The 46-year-old from Jilin allegedly came out of nowhere. Police said they would strengthen security management in key areas to ensure the safety of local residents and tourists - but considering that safety measures already include items like "tell people not to leave their houses unless absolutely necessary," how much safer can you get without, we dunno, emptying the whole of Beijing?

Rumors that the syringe attackers in Xinjiang were Uyghurs bent on giving AIDS to Hans sparked a thousands strong protest yesterday. Witnesses described chanting crowds marching with Chinese flags, shouts of "Wang Lequan (regional secretary of Xinjiang) step down!" and at least one Uyghur being beaten up by a crowd while paramilitary police officers watched, according to the New York Times. Officials were loath to discuss the protests, telling the Times "You guys should not be so eager competing for the news. Just wait one day until the official news comes out." Well, we guess that's what you get asking for a political opinion here.

It amazes us that China can somehow manage to realize our worst fears, even the most illogical ones. Needless to say, we cringed for about five minutes after reading a report from China Daily stating that fifteen people in Xinjiang were seized after attacking people with syringes. AAH! Members of nine different ethnic groups reported stabbing incidents to the police, which is a good sign, as it doesn't seem related to the ethnic violence that raged through Xinjiang last month. But the article is interestingly silent on the ethnicity of the syringe attackers, which can only make us more curious and more worried about how they went about detaining people. Luckily, none of the victims have been infected or poisoned so far, but just the thought of such a horrid experience leaves us with chills.

A male prostitute has now been charged for knowingly spreading the AIDS virus in a highly unusual case, according to Shanghai Daily. Huangpu District prosecutors arrested the prostitute, named Zhang, after he got into a heated argument with a potential John over the price of sex. Zhang had tested positive for AIDS in February, but continued to work as a prostitute because he “didn't think much about the consequences... [he] just wanted excitement.” The rest of the article is a bit of a wash, calling this the first type of this case “this year.” This year? You sure it isn't “ever?”

• Shanghai is going to be the next stop for A Nice Set, a traveling exhibition of customized slipmats designed by leading artsts from around the world. The exhibition will open at 7:30pm on September 12 at SOURCE. [Neocha Edge]
• The Wall Street Journal has a great piece on Zhaohang village, which contains land that would've been razed to build Shanghai Disneyland. As is the way in China, many villagers didn't get the compensation they were hoping for. [WSJ]
• Bad news for all those trying to make a quick buck on their foreign faces, apparently Shanghai is cracking down on foreign people modeling firms. [Shanghai Daily]

Holy crap, in case you doubted for a second that Hong Kong triads were still scary as heck - a senior triad boss was knocked down yesterday and hacked to death right outside the 5-star Shangri-La hotel in Kowloon on Tuesday. The victim, Lee Tai-lung, was hit by the car when he stepped out of his Mercedes, according to reports. Three knifemen then got out and slashed at him, inflicting "serious chop wounds to his arms." They fled the scene immediately and two burnt-out cars, believed to be linked to the attack, were discovered a few hours later. The Hong Kong police's anti-triad unit is now investigating. Source: AFP

In the biggest raid undertaken this decade, Shanghai police seized 65 people from a suspected home-burglary ring this morning in Minhang. 658 officers, 17 police trucks and several sniffer dogs were used in the raid, which seized oer 20 laptops as well as cars, mobile phones and ATM cards. The burglary ring had used its Yingdu Lu location to commit more than 100 burglaries across the surrounding districts. They would focus on six-story buildings, entering homes by climbing over walls and through windows. Source: Shanghai Daily

Dear expat men, we get that Shanghai is filled to the brim with sultry sirens batting their eyelids and flashing their wares, and that it's probably too much to ask you guys to not partake in the debauchery all around you. But, beware; beneath each playful mermaid is a sea monster waiting to feast. Case in point: two Indonesian women who were just detained by police on Wednesday. Their catches - an Australian, a Dutchman and a Frenchman - all fell victim to the same ploy. Vulnerable and drunk (or just horny), these expat men accepted candy - drugged candy - from the ladies at bars around town. These unsuspecting men then took the pair home, only to have all their luggage stolen in the middle of the night. The two ladies were nabbed at their Huangpu hotel and are now under police custody, where they can do rich, lascivious expats no more harm... but don't think there aren't others like them out there! Source: Shanghai Daily

In May, two sisters who were attending an elementary school in Kunming, Yunnan, were suddenly arrested by the police. Their charge: prostitution. The girls' parents were also caught and beaten for allegedly attacking police officers.

This video, which has gotten over 130,000 views so far, is of what netizens are now calling the bravest bus driver.

Deng Yujiao, the waitress who killed an official after he allegedly sexually assaulted her and promptly became a Chinese folk hero, has now been released following a two hour trial. The dead official, head of a trade promo department in Deng's town, is said to have demanded "special services" from Deng, thrown money in her face and pushed her to the sofa several times before she stabbed him with a fruit knife. The internet soon took special interest in her case, rallying several times against perceived "injustices" during the investigation and pre-trial phases of her ordeal. The Hubei province court ruled that Deng was guilty of intentional injury and had acted with "excessive defence," but freed her without punishment. She was diagnosed with a "mental imbalance." Source: BBC

This news piece from Shanghai Daily about a man who got drunk and raped his girlfriend's mother is pretty horrific, but we were particularly struck by a contention near the bottom of the article that the perpetrator, Liu Changren, had been accused of having sex with the mother last year as well. Allegedly, Liu told her she was possessed by the evil spirit of her dead husband and needed to sleep with a young man to cast him out. It sounded very similar to a previous sexorcism story we'd heard, only that guy's name was Ji Renhu. So... is this an editorial mistake or is there now a trend of young men in Baoshan district routinely performing sexorcisms on their girlfriend's mothers?

• Facebook blunder betrays NZ millionaires [ABC] "Interpol is still trying to find a couple of cashed-up Kiwis, believed to be living it up in Asia, after they were mistakenly given $8 million ($NZ10 million) by Westpac. Rotorua service station owners Leo Gao and his girlfriend Cara Young fled New Zealand with about $NZ3 million after they discovered the money in their bank account. But their chances of being caught have increased after they were joined overseas by Ms Young's sister, Aroha Hurring, who posted details about their location on her Facebook page. Police believe the trio are in China after Ms Hurring foolishly updated her status to say she was drinking the local Asian beer and enjoying the heat."
• Taiwan Firm to Offer Google Phone in China [WSJ] "HTC Corp. plans next month to start selling in China a smart phone based on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, the first Google-based phone in the world's biggest wireless market, HTC Chief Executive Peter Chou said in an interview. The new HTC phone is a version of the company's Magic model, unveiled in February, that has been customized to incorporate software from China Mobile Ltd. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile operator, with nearly 500 million accounts."
• In Chinese city, WWII enemies are now partners [LA Times] "Looking back, Japanese businessman Tomatsu Ito says, he might as well have moved to Mars rather than a few hours' flight away to China... Often desperate, he would phone JianHua Yang, his second in charge at the branch office of an Osaka, Japan-based software company. Yang is a Dalian native who, like many here, speaks Japanese. Their budding bicultural friendship symbolizes a trend here: Ito is among thousands of Japanese flocking to this bustling port on China's eastern seaboard. Resentment still runs deep in China over Japan's 40 years of often brutal colonial rule in this region in the early 1900s, but Dalian has become a singularly welcoming oasis."

Now that the suspects have been rounded up and everything has settled down a bit, we can confirm that the shooting in Shanghai's Putuo district on Friday was a fatal clash between two gangs. All in all, four homemade (homemade?) guns were confiscated and 10 people were detained, of which two have now passed away from gunshot wounds. While police would give no more explanation than that the argument was over a dispute, Shanghai Daily speculated that it was a drug deal gone wrong. The last time we saw a shooting was way back in 2002, and there were two injuries. Source: Xinhua

That's right - people actually got SHOT in Shanghai, despite the country's incredibly strict laws on gun control! Two men are said to have received gunshot wounds in the Huili Garden apartment complex off Changshou Road in the Putuo District.

We've heard of some barking mad methods to throw renters out on the street, but this particular incident is really boneheaded. A developer in Taiyuan, the capital of Shaanxi Province, unleashed dogs on its tenants and put some of them in a dog cage because they did not move out of their house on time.

Two ex-Bank of China managers (and their wives) have been given lengthy sentences for their parts in an elaborate scheme to swindle money out of China and move to the United States. The couples laundered money from China into false corporations and personal accounts in Hong Kong, Canada and the U.S. and obtained false identities and entered into fake marriages to settle in Las Vegas. They were eventually arrested in 2004 and found guilty last year. Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun, the two banking masterminds, were given 25 and 22 years each respectively. Their wives both got eight years each. Still, their sentences sound much more preferable to the fate of a third manager, Yu Zhengdong, who actually helped authorities catch the wayward bankers - despite his cooperation with investigators, he is now languishing in a Chinese jail. Source: BBC

Uh oh, it looks like us pedestrians aren't the only ones getting stolen from recently, thanks to the current dastardly economic situation. City police have now issued a warning reminding companies that keeping large amounts of cash on their premises may not be a good idea. Shanghai has seen a 35% rise in thefts of local areas since February, compared to the same period last year. The most robbed districts: Qingpu, Pudong, Fengxian, Songjiang and Jiading. Source: Shanghai Daily

While bus drivers do tend to get a little crazy here in Shanghai, at least when they get into accidents, it's unintentional. The same can't be said for this driver in Nanjing, who enacted a real life GTA, driving his bus into a motorcyclist and dragging the body for a good five kilometers before he was finally stopped.

Last night around 7pm, a man at the Baoshan Road station on the No.3 line was beaten to death. According to police reports and witness accounts, four to five young men chased down the deceased and began beating him near the No. 1 entrance close to Qiujiang Road. The deceased was around 40 years old and operated a stall right outside the subway station. Police are currently investigating. Source: Netease

Pickpocketing, an issue in any major city, seems to become a developing problem for Shanghai citizens in recent months - and we're not just talking from personal experience (though, sadly, some of us have become recent victims).

A Shanghai man who had helped hundreds of Chinese travel abroad with visas based on falsified information has been given a 14-year prison sentence. 30-year-old Jiang Yi is accused of running one of the country's biggest human smuggling rings so far discovered.

In lieu of Women's Day, China Crossroads is highlighting women's issues in China including: women in the workplace, migrant women, reproductive health and sex workers.

By Richard Yu

The mother of a 4-year-old girl who died in Shanghai No. 5 People's Hospital after suffering severe beatings was charged with child abuse yesterday. The girl was taken to hospital by her stepfather on Januray the 8, but had already died once they got there. Hospital staff noticed several cuts and bruises on her body.