Friday, July 25, 2008

Hong Kong kiddie crimewave?

The lede in this story makes it sound like a crew of seven-year-old tykes had tried to pull off a heist:
Three Hong Kong children have been sentenced to more than three years for the armed hold-up of a jewellery shop, a newspaper said on Thursday, with the court saying the stiff sentence was in the public interest.
Actually, it turns out that the three of them were actually fourteen at the time of the robbery, which may be rare in Hong Kong, but which happens here in the States sometimes.

Instead, they save the real shocker for the end of the article:
Earlier this week, a court heard that a nine-year-old Hong Kong girl traveled alone into mainland China to collect heroin and bring it back in her rucksack for a drug trafficker who paid her HK$1,200.
I wonder, how long of a "time out" do you give a little girl for heroin trafficking?

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