xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

After trials in two separate cases in September (in the Chinese province of Henan and the city of Zhuhau), four men were found guilty of defrauding government banks and promptly executed. (According to figures released by China’s Supreme Court in September, more than 4,200 people convicted of fraud in the last five years have received either the death penalty or life in prison or another “heavy penalty.”) And a week after that, in Shenzhen, China, a couple was fined the equivalent of $94,000 and ejected from their home for violating the country’s one-child rule.

(1) The District of Columbia’s inspector general reported in September that the D.C. procurement office had recently sold 11 surplus fire trucks for a total of $3,125, when 11 nearly identical (year and model) trucks were sold over the Internet for more than $360,000.

(2) The Washington Times reported in September that the same procurement office had recently awarded three construction contracts to a company whose principal was awaiting sentencing on a federal fraud conviction. And it gets worse: Three days after that report, the Times found that the last of the three contracts was awarded two days after another D.C. government office had officially revoked the construction company’s corporate charter for failing to make required filings.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD