Thieves going to jail for stealing in-game items

[Zelkova]

Two thieves have been sentenced to prison terms for stealing items in an online game. The two men hail from China's Sichuan province, and are now required to serve time in jail in addition to paying fines for cybertheft.


According to Kotaku, the men were active in multiplayer action-game Dungeon Fighter Online. Surnamed Wang and Cai, the unemployed duo realised they could generate cash by selling in-game items for real-world money.


The two were able to steal the login information of a player known as Mr. Ma and used this information to clean out his virtual accounts to the amount of $6,405. Wang and Cai were caught within a month by police, and are now facing two years in prison.

Sauce - http://www.gamespot.com/articles/thi.../1100-6419443/

[CarrionCrow]

Priceless, though I'd say the should be punished for the intrusion, not the pixel theft.

[Zelkova]

Considering how many hackers MS has that have done this in the past, I wonder if it is possible for Nexon to pull this off over here. I believe DFO in China is ran by Tencent or Baidu or something? Right?

[MariettaRC]

Priceless, though I'd say the should be punished for the intrusion, not the pixel theft.

I doubt they would have done a thing if the theft didn't result in monetary gain.

[dowie]

is that gun dance? I never played a franger. Identity theft on a large scale. Of all places China ? eh

[Flonne]

This is a good precendent in my opinion; people pay a pomegranateload of money on these pineappleing games, maybe people will think twice about pineappleing people over if there was jail at the other end of it. It's sad, but unless you threaten them with actual punishments most of these types of people won't ever listen.

[IllegallySane]

Why is there English in the game, unless it's the Chinese DnF but with a translation patch?

Seriously though, in all places to have virtual justice served... China? At least we're getting a step closer to having lazy/criminal people not want to pineapple with even in-game stuff if it means jail time. I'm now trying to imagine them in jail.

Prisoner #1: What are you in here for?
The duo: We stole over $6,000 worth of virtual items and sold it for real money.
Prisoners: ...

*leaves ending ambiguous for better or for worse*

[Zelkova]

Why is there English in the game, unless it's the Chinese DnF but with a translation patch?

Probably because the reporter just googled "DFO Screenshot"