People who withdraw money from found credit cards at Automatic Teller Machines should be charged with fraud, China's top prosecutor said on its Website today after three people in similar cases were charged differently.

People in such cases should be sentenced according to "swindling activities with credit cards" based on the country's Criminal Law, the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China said.

People should be sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention and to a fine between 20,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan if found guilty of using someone else's credit card as their own or to overdraw through malice, the country's Criminal Law states.

The procuratorate's explanation came after three people received sentences ranging from probation to six months detention in very similar conditions.

A man in Chengdu City in Sichuan Province was found guilty of theft after withdrawing more than 70,000 yuan (US$10,014) from a credit card that was left by others in an ATM machine.

Another man in the city was convicted of swindling after withdrawing 40,000 yuan under the same circumstances, the Beijing-based Legal Daily has reported.

Both were sentenced to probation, the report said.

But in Guangzhou, a 43-year-old Hunan businessman, Yin Guangxiong, has been sentenced six months in detention and fined 1,000 yuan after withdrawing 5,000 yuan from another person's card.

The Yuexiu District Court said Yin was guilty of theft and his actions were similar to going into someone's house and taking their money, a Guangzhou Daily report has said.

Yin was sentenced even after he returned the money to the owner, who forgave Yin, Guangzhou Daily reported.

Yin was captured in a bank in October by police when he wanted to withdraw money for the second time.

(Shanghai Daily May 7, 2008)