A local court gave three property management company employees suspended prison sentences for running a side businesses selling counterfeit parking passes to tenants in their office building, Jing'an District People's Court said Thursday.
The three defendants, who were not identified, were found guilty of encroachment of duty for misappropriating company assets for their own ends, according to a court press release. The defendants made more than 80,000 yuan ($12,841) from the sales, which took place between October 2010 and June 2012.
One of the defendants, the property management company's chief security guard for a building in Jing'an district, came up with the scheme after he noticed the building's underground parking garage had a lot of empty spots, while many of the tenants needed parking spaces, the court said.
He persuaded an employee in charge of issuing parking passes to create counterfeits that they could then sell on their own.
After the chief had the counterfeit passes, he asked another security guard to sell them to tenants, the court said.
From October 2010 to December 2011, the guard sold 15 passes a month for between 600 yuan and 800 yuan each, said Li Hongguang, a press officer from the Jing'an District People's Court. "They were about the same price as the genuine passes," Li told the Global Times.
For every 600-yuan pass that was sold, the chief security guard would keep 300 yuan, the card maker would take 200 yuan and the other guard could get 100 yuan, the court said.
The chief security guard managed to sell seven more monthly passes in February.
The three kept the business hidden from their employer until some tenants began to suspect the passes were counterfeits. In June, the property management company got wind of their scheme and reported the three men to police.
The court gave the defendants between two and three years in prison each, but suspended the sentences, effectively giving them probation.
The court said it was lenient on the defendants because they confessed to police.