2 Get Life Sentences in Watermelon Robbery
Two men who led a brazen melon robbery that outraged China’s official press have been sentenced to life imprisonment, the Beijing Evening News said Thursday.
Lao Guiyang and Zhang Minghua led a mob that ambushed trucks carrying 22,000 pounds of expensive out-of-season melons from a railway station to Beijing markets in April, the paper said. Seven other men received sentences of two to 12 years.
Their raid led to a 12-hour free-for-all during which bystanders, including railway staff, helped themselves to melons worth $4,000.
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