Cheating Chinese pigeon racers hide birds on bullet train in short cut to US$147,000 prize money
Men given suspended sentences of three years for fraud after they hid birds in milk cartons and took bullet train to the finish line 750km away in Shanghai
Cheating to win is as old as sport itself but two Chinese pigeon racers took it to modern-day extremes when they hid the birds in milk cartons and hopped on a bullet train.
It was no surprise then when their homing pigeons scooped the first four places in the race and total prize money of more than 1 million yuan (US$147,000).
But the pigeons’ rapid times soon raised suspicions and Shanghai race organisers turned the men in when the scale of the ruse emerged, state-run Legal Daily reported.
The two men, surnamed Gong and Zhang, attempted to conceal their crime by killing the birds and giving up the prize money, the official newspaper said.
But it was too late and a Shanghai court handed the duo suspended sentences of three years for fraud.
The court also fined Gong 30,000 yuan and Zhang 20,000 yuan, Legal Daily said, adding that they also broke competition rules by using older pigeons instead of one-year-olds.
