The higher People's Court of Yunnan Province has rejected the appeal of three enterprises managers charged with credit card fraud and upheld their original sentences ranging from 11 years to 20 in prison.
According to the court ruling, Dou Wei, a 37-year-old manager of the Chuncheng Sub-Branch under the Yunnan Provincial Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China, took advantage of his position of overseer of Jinsui Credit Card transactions by accepting bribes from three legal persons to make copies of customers' credit cards for them, and illegally withdraw money from the card accounts.
Li's cohorts were Li Jinsui of the Jinsui Group Co. LTD, Bao Shikun of the Kunming Biochemical Factory, and Shang Dehua, legal person of the Julong Group Co. Ltd..
Dou gave copies of some of the cards to Li, Bao and Shang, and kept others for himself. In the period from September 1997 to March 1999, the four men drew 173.9 million yuan from 30 credit cards. Dou also took a total of 260,000 yuan in bribes from Li, Bao and Shang.
In the first ruling last December, the Kunming Intermediate Court sentenced Dou to life imprisonment and the other three defendants to terms ranging from 11 to 20 years. Li, Bao and Shang pled not guilty and appealed to the higher court.
(Xinhua 02/08/2001)
