Six mainlanders have been sentenced to death in a kidnapping case modelled on an abduction carried out by Hong Kong crime boss 'Big Spender' in 1996.
Zhao Chengbin was kidnapped in Guangzhou on January 20 last year, with Cheung Tze-keung's abduction of tycoon Li Ka-shing's son Victor Li Tzar-kuoi used as a blueprint, the Yang Cheng Evening News said on Tuesday without detailing the similarities.
The kidnappers killed Zhao after receiving a ransom of two million yuan (HK$1.88 million) and dumped his body, weighted down with iron hammers, in the river under the Jiu Jiang Bridge in Guangzhou. Harbin Municipal People's Court recently sentenced six of the seven culprits to death.
Victor Li survived his ordeal in May 1996 when a $1.38 billion ransom was demanded.
Cheung, who also kidnapped Sun Hung Kai chief Walter Kwok Ping-sheung, for a $600 million ransom in 1996, was executed in Guangdong in December 1998.
