An undated combo wanted photo of Ren Xiaofeng (R), 34, and Ma Xiangjing, 37
© AFP/STR/File STRBEIJING (AFP) - Last month's bumbling but sensational heist -- and the nationwide manhunt that followed -- made headlines across China and once again trained a spotlight on management at the nation's graft-plagued banks.
Ren Xiaofeng, 34, and Ma Xiangjing, 37, were the vault managers at a branch of the Agricultural Bank of China in Handan city, Hebei province, when they started "borrowing" money from the vault to play the state lottery.
The two thought that by buying millions of yuan in tickets they would eventually win back enough to replace the missing funds and allow them to leave their low paying jobs for a life of luxury, press reports said.
"I really regret that I have been so stupid in doing such a dumb thing," Ren was quoted in the local press as saying after his April 19 arrest.
"Ma Xiangdong and I both like to play the lottery, we thought that we could use the money and buy lottery tickets and win the big prize. We were going to pay the bank back, we never intended to rob the bank."
The two first took 50,000 yuan from the vault on April 1 and spent it all on lottery tickets.
But after failing to win, they returned to the vault over the following days to take out more and more money.
They spent a total of 47 million yuan on lottery tickets in Handan, an industrial city in northern China about 300 kilometres (180 miles) southwest of Beijing.
"The most we ever spent on lottery tickets at one time was 14.1 million yuan, we were thinking that we could win double what we had stolen," said Ren, the father of two-year-old twins.
"But we didn't win. It was at that time that we knew we were finished and that we had better escape," he said. "So we decided we should steal some more money and flee Handan forever."
On April 13 and 14 they stole another eight million yuan. They told their wives they were going away on business, bought another six million yuan in lottery tickets, then parted ways.
As vault managers the two Handan natives, who had been promoted to their posts months earlier, had the only two keys to the vault.
The pair also knew the vault combination in violation of bank policy. During their after-hours heists, they cut the electricity supply to the bank to disable video surveillance cameras.
On Monday April 16, the bank reported the robbery, prompting a nationwide call for their arrests that was carried by all media outlets. Wanted posters went up everywhere, including in housing complexes in Beijing.
Media reports and lively Internet chatrooms speculated that the fugitives had elaborate escape plans and had already fled the country. Sightings were reported in many places. They were portrayed as latter-day Robin Hoods who duped the system.
But such speculation and romance was short lived. Ma was arrested in Beijing on April 18 with about 600,000 yuan in cash.
A day later, police arrested Ren in Lianyungang, a coastal city in Jiangsu where he had rented an apartment. Ren had 3.4 million yuan with him when arrested, reports said.
Ren and Ma are facing charges of corruption and the illegal use of public funds. They face execution if convicted.
The luckless pair have become the latest in a long line of employees to come undone for succumbing to temptation while working in China's notoriously corrupt banks.
In June last year, the Agricultural Bank of China alone sacked 64 employees and took disciplinary action against nearly 1,300 others after an audit found irregularities worth 6.45 billion dollars, state media said.
Also last year, the United States repatriated two former managers of a branch of the Bank of China who had fled after defrauding the state-owned lender of 485 million dollars.
©AFP