Chinese prosecutors have charged 74 people in connection with a series of grisly murders aimed at extorting compensation from coal mining firms, state media said on Wednesday.
The workers are accused of a killing spree that left 17 dead in six regions across the country, the Global Times said, with the deaths made to look like work accidents. The slaughter was all part of a complicated con by participants who posed as the victims’ family, and then offered mine-owners their silence in exchange for a big pay day, the paper said.
“Once paid, they would quietly move on... Since they knew how easy it was to con and extort money out of coal mine owners, they would kill again and again,” the paper reported.