TCM thief sentenced to 10 years

A 26-year-old Shanxi Province man was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan ($1,603.68) for stealing 1.44 million yuan worth of a rare type of traditional Chinese medicine, a local court announced Tuesday.

The defendant, surnamed Xue, stole more than 5,000 grams of the medicine, a fungus that grows on a kind of caterpillar, after he broke into a drug store in Pudong New Area on May 24, according to a press release from Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court. He then fled to Beijing.

"The drug store does not have guards on duty at night and the valuable fungus had not been put away in a special refrigerator like usual. All of this made it easier for Xue to steal it, said Fu Xinzhen, a press officer with Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court.

Beijing police discovered 4,313 grams of the fungus at his home in the capital when they arrested him later that month.

The fungus, which is used to treat cancer and bolster a patient's constitution, only grows in high altitudes such as the plateaus of Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces, as well as the Tibet Autonomous Region. The fungus is expensive because it is scarce and difficult to produce.

Xue earned 85,000 yuan selling a portion of the fungus he stole. He returned the rest to the drug store after he was caught, according to the court. He also confessed to breaking into three stores in Beijing and stealing more than 20,000 yuan worth of goods.