74 accused of murder, fraud in fake mine accidents

Prosecutors in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region have accused 74 defendants of killing people and using their corpses to make false claims of mining incidents, the regional prosecuting authority said on Monday.

The prosecuting body in the region's Bayannur League alleged that the defendants fabricated mining disaster claims after murdering 17 people in six provinces and autonomous regions, including Shanxi, Hebei and Xinjiang, and then asking for compensation.

After interrogating the suspects and reviewing materials, facts and evidence, the league's prosecutors brought the case to court on May 30, charging the defendants with homicide, fraud, blackmail, hiding offenses and possessing criminal gains.

No more details, such as the times of the alleged crimes, have been released by the regional prosecutors.

It is not an isolated case.

According to a report in China Youth Daily two years ago, a gang of 21 migrant workers, most from Sichuan and Yunan provinces, cheated around 1.85 million yuan ($281,000) in one year after killing four other workers and making their deaths look like mining accidents.

Using mined stones in Handan city, Hebei province, the gang murdered the four colleagues and then "helped" the victims' families ask for compensation from the mining employers, the report said.

Many of the defendants in that case were related, it said.

In August 2014, the Handan Intermediate People's Court sentenced five defendants to death, one to a suspended death sentence and three to life imprisonment for homicide, said a report from the Supreme People's Court.

The other defendants were sentenced at the same time, it said.

They appealed but were rebuffed by the provincial High People's Court, which sustained the original judgment. The original verdict was strictly in line with the Chinese Criminal Law, and the sentences were reasonable, it said.

In 2011, the People's Daily website also reported that some defendants took people with mental diseases to mining sites and then killed them to ask for compensation from the mine owners, even creating a criminal network.