07 May 2019 :

Six men were executed on 12 April 2019 in northern China for killing mine workers and then claiming millions of yuan in compensation from the pit owners. According to a verdict from Linfen Intermediate People’s Court in Shanxi province, the defendants claimed the compensation by posing as the victims’ relatives and saying the workers died in industrial accidents, Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper reported on 5 May 2019. The court said the six farmers – Peng Wanjun, Guo Dejing, Wang Honglin, Zhang Yuanmei, Bai Yuangui and Liu Xuejun – killed 11 workers in mines in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces between 2007 and 2014, cheating the mining companies out of a combined 3.1 million yuan (US$460,000) in compensation. The six criminals were aged between 22 and 47 and from poor remote villages in Shaanxi.