Over-the-top April Fool’s Day blackmail prank lands Beijing man in jail

Name: Art students in China ‘prank’ teachers with their realistic drawings
Uploaded: 2021-04-01T11:00:14.000Z
Duration: 3 min 13 s
Description: Art students in China ‘prank’ teachers with their realistic drawings

The man blackmailed a doctor by pretending to be part of the military and demanding 600,000 yuan (US$91,300) with the threat of violence

The court said the man had gone beyond a reasonable joke and had broken the law, despite the April Fool’s Day excuse

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A man in Beijing claims his blackmail ploy was an April Fool’s Day prank. The court still sentenced him to 3 1/2 years in jail. Photo: Shutterstock

Zhuang Pinghui

Published: 7:00pm, 1 Apr 2021Updated: 7:13pm, 1 Apr 2021

A man in Beijing who said he pulled a misguided April Fool’s Day prank on a doctor by writing a blackmail letter and demanding 600,000 yuan (US$91,300) was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail for the poor decision.

The man, identified only by his family name Wu, was accompanying his wife, who is a doctor, on a night shift on April 1, 2019 when he decided to pull the prank on the chief of the neurology department of the hospital, identified only by his family name Zhong, according to a statement issued by the Beijing People’s High Court on March 30, 2021.

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Art students in China ‘prank’ teachers with their realistic drawings

That night, Wu pretended to be with the military and wrote a letter demanding that Zhong place 600,000 yuan in a flower bed at a nearby bus stop before noon on April 3 or he would kill the chief’s two sons. He also threatened Zhong so he would not call the police.

Wu then put the letter under Zhong’s computer keyboard and went to the bus stop, where he stayed until 11am. At the same time, the neurology doctor found the letter and reported it to the police.

Wu turned himself in to the police after his wife told him the doctor was being blackmailed. Wu said he was only pulling an April Fool’s Day prank.

The Beijing People’s High Court released a statement about Wu’s case in an effort to remind people that some practical jokes could be illegal. Photo: AFP

But the court was unsympathetic to that excuse, pointing out that pretending to be a soldier and threatening the lives of others “constituted the crime of extortion.”