China death sentence for ant scam
‘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.
Wang Zhendong, from the northeastern province of Liaoning, fabricated a business purported to be making wine, tea and medical elixirs using mature ants, the Beijing News said. [..]
More than 10,000 people, lured by the promise of returns of up to 60 percent, signed 100,000 contracts with Wang’s bogus company before the case came under investigation in June 2005. [..]
In his defense, Wang said he did not know the first thing about raising ants and was “quite unclear” about the costs, the Beijing News said.’
