Forget robbery, try state-owned enterprises for a quick buck

The most popular Hollywood movies on the mainland are always about heists, with Fast Five reaping 67 million yuan (HK$82.45 million) at the box office in its first four days of screening last year.

In that perfect world, the outlaws pocket all the money and take hot, bikini-clad girls back home. The outlaws are happy, and so are the audiences.

But the real world doesn't have Hollywood endings and, on the mainland, robbery is a particularly bleak vocation compared with other avenues for illicit gain - such as working for a state-owned enterprise.

The Zhengzhou Daily reported on Wednesday that one young man who stole a purse on the street was caught immediately and jailed for more than eight years.

Meanwhile, the Legal Evening News reported that the head of a small company owned by Shandong's provincial government who, together with his wife corruptly received nearly 2 million yuan was jailed for 13 years. That's only five years more than the poor robber who did not get to spend a fen of his ill-gotten gains.

And a popular online post detailed purchases made by a state-owned real estate company based in Nanjing , showing the spendthrift nature of its officials. Modern Express, a newspaper owned by Xinhua, reported that the Nanjing company spent 4,000 yuan to buy a pet dog as a gift for one of the officials, 3,762 yuan on saunas, 3,000 yuan on fishing trips and 2,622 yuan on a suit for a female official.