In Baoding City's Qingyuan County, a woman devised a strange plan to avoid repaying her debt: she pretended to pay it back, got the IOU back from the creditor, and then tore up the IOU and snatched back the money. As a result, what started as an ordinary civil dispute turned into a criminal case. Recently, Li Mei, who was suspected of robbery, was placed under criminal detention by the Qingyuan County police. A man who drove his car to run over a male infant and refused to surrender was sentenced to three years in prison.
According to the Qingyuan County police, Wang Hong from a certain village and Li Mei from a neighboring village had previously done business together and had a good relationship. In the autumn of 2010, due to a shortage of funds for her business, Li Mei borrowed 50,000 yuan from Wang Hong and wrote an IOU, promising to repay it within a year. By October this year, the agreed repayment date had arrived, but despite Wang Hong repeatedly urging Li Mei to repay, Li Mei kept delaying on various pretexts, causing their friendship to sour.
On October 26, Li Mei suddenly invited Wang Hong to her home under the pretense of repaying the debt. Subsequently, Li Mei handed over 50,000 yuan in cash to Wang Hong in front of her, and Wang Hong wrote a receipt stating "all settled" and returned both the receipt and the IOU to Li Mei. Just as Wang Hong was rejoicing at recovering her money, Li Mei, who had planned this all along, grabbed the 50,000 yuan back when Wang Hong wasn't paying attention. She quickly shredded the IOU and fled out the door. Shocked and angry, Wang Hong immediately called "110" to report the incident.
On November 6, the police from the Wangting Criminal Investigation Team of Qingyuan County arrested the suspect Li Mei. Faced with the evidence presented by the police, she confessed to the entire incident: that year, she had borrowed 50,000 yuan from her friend Wang Hong. As the repayment deadline approached, her business became increasingly unprofitable, and she really didn't want to repay the money. Her friend's repeated urging made her even more resentful. After much deliberation, she came up with a "brilliant idea": first, repay the money to Wang Hong, then after Wang Hong handed over the IOU, snatch back the money and destroy the IOU. Without the IOU, no one could prove that she owed Wang Hong any money. To facilitate her later denial, she deliberately chose her own home as the location for the "repay first, snatch later" scheme, believing that since the 50,000 yuan was taken from her own home, it wouldn't be considered illegal.
A lawyer in Baoding City analyzed that the debt dispute between Li Mei and Wang Hong was originally an ordinary civil economic dispute. Even if Li Mei refused to repay and Wang Hong sued her in court, the court would only enforce the repayment. Although the location where Li Mei snatched the money was in her own home, after she handed over the 50,000 yuan to the creditor Wang Hong and recovered the IOU, the money already belonged to Wang Hong. When Li Mei snatched back the money and destroyed the IOU, she was suspected of committing a robbery. According to relevant provisions of China's Criminal Law, snatching 50,000 yuan is considered "an especially huge amount," and sentencing can range from ten to twelve years in prison. If it is found that there was violence involved at the time, then it would涉嫌robbery crime, and the sentencing would be even more severe during the trial. (All names in the article are pseudonyms.) (Reporters Wang Yang and Shi Yingjie, Correspondent Chang Bing)
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