Five Assassins Were All Charged With Hiring Each Other To Kill A Man

Tan Youhui was an investor in two different Chinese real estate companies, one based in Guangxi and one based in Nanning. In 2013, another developer named Wei sued both companies, for complicated real estate reasons, and Tan stood to lose a bundle of money. The simplest way out of this situation, he figured, was to get someone to put a bullet in Wei's head.

He gave the job to one Xi Guangan. Another investor in the companies, Qin Youhui, joined in the conspiracy, providing Xi with info on Wei, as well as a copy of his ID. But Xi didn't carry out the job himself. Having been offered 2 million yuan for the deed, he contacted an assassin named Mo Tianxiang, saying he'd pay him 1 million—and another million after Wei was dead, supposedly.

Mo Tianxiang accepted the contract. But he outsourced it to hit man Yang Kangsheng, paying him 270,000 yuan. Yang Kangsheng, now armed with a white mobile phone containing Wei's photo, subcontracted the job to Yang Guangsheng, who had a similar name but who was a totally different person. Guangsheng hunted down yet another hit man, Ling Xiansi, and the price he offered to kill Wei was just 100,000 yuan.

Ling too was unwilling to do the job himself, and perhaps he could find no one willing to take the job off him for less than 100k. So on April 14, 2014, he met with Wei in person. He told him there was a contract on him, but if he would just pose bound and gagged, Ling could snap a photo and use that as proof of a successful hit, without having to actually kill him.

Wei agreed. But he did ask that Ling hand over all the stuff he had on him, including that white mobile phone. And when Wei went to the authorities, he had enough evidence for them to work their way up the chain and arrest every single lazy assassin we just named. All of them were convicted of "intentional homicide" (even though no actual homicide was ever committed), and Tan, who came up with the whole idea, got the longest sentence of all.

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