A man from Shandong who broke into a rural home in Baoying County, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, and made off with a safe weighing roughly 50 kilograms has been sentenced to ten years and six months in prison along with a fine of 200,000 yuan.
On May 17, 2026, a farming household in Fanshui Town, Baoying, reported to police that a black safe kept on the second floor had been stolen, with the contents valued at nearly one million yuan, including 570,000 yuan in cash and more than 300 grams of gold.
Given the seriousness of the case, Baoying police immediately organized a team to investigate and found that on May 15 a truck with Shandong license plates had lingered for an extended period on a national highway near the village where the household was located.
Following the trail, officers eventually apprehended the suspect, surnamed Hou, in Pingyi County, Shandong, and recovered melted gold and part of the cash from his home. With the suspect and the evidence in hand, Hou confessed to the crime.
Zhu Rong, an assistant prosecutor with the First Prosecution Department of the Baoying County People's Procuratorate, said Hou is a truck driver with multiple prior theft convictions who, strapped for money, returned to his old ways. At the time of the offense, he was driving his truck past a village along National Highway 233 when he spontaneously decided to enter the village and commit the theft.
Hou admitted that after climbing over the wall and entering the house at around 8 p.m. that evening, he found a huge safe in a wardrobe in a second-floor bedroom. Worried that prying or smashing it open would make too much noise, Hou relied on his considerable strength and moved the safe directly from the second floor down to the first floor and loaded it into his truck.
Zhu Rong said the safe was nearly half a meter long and wide and close to one meter tall, weighing around 50 kilograms. Hou, who is quite strong, threw the safe from a second-floor window onto a first-floor platform, then pushed it to the ground, found a handcart, and wheeled the safe into his truck.
What Hou did not expect was that he would fall into the hands of the law just over ten days after the crime. The Baoying County People's Procuratorate recently filed public charges against Hou for theft, and because the amount stolen was especially large, the court sentenced him in accordance with the law to ten years and six months in prison and a fine of 200,000 yuan.
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