Provincial police announced on Tuesday that they had cracked a criminal case involving the abduction and sale of nine boys in South China's Guangdong Province.
Police arrested chief suspect Chen Guangsheng in Guangzhou on March 15, and all nine were found by April 19.
Chen told investigators that from 1996 to 1997 he abducted nine boys from a town in eastern Guangdong Province and sold them to people in other cities in the province.
The boys ranged in age from 3 to 7 at the time they were abducted, police said.
Chen lured the boys with candy or soft drinks and sold each child for 15,000 yuan (US$1,724) at most, according to the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau.
Parents were reunited with their children. According to China's Criminal Code, criminals who abduct and sell more than three children can be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison, life in prison or even death.
Yang Wenying, Chen's accomplice, was sentenced to death by the Shanwei Municipal People's Court in January 1998.
Chen escaped then and remained on the run for the last four years, police said.
(China Daily April 25, 2002)
