Photo: Screenshot from the WeChat account of People’ Daily

A court in Central China’s Hunan Province has sentenced six people to prison terms ranging from nine months to 59 months, along with fines of up to 300,000 yuan, for conspiring to embezzle eggs worth more than 4 million yuan ($590,000) from a livestock company, People’s Daily reported on Wednesday. The group’s illegal gains varied from over 110,000 yuan to more than 3.88 million yuan.

According to the people’s court in Shimen county, Changde, Hunan, four of the six convicted individuals were employees of a livestock company in Hunan. They worked as warehouse custodians in a non-breeding egg storage facility. 
Between January 2021 and September 2024, the other two offenders, while purchasing eggs from the company, colluded with the four employees to embezzle the company eggs by falsifying shipment records and manipulating inventory data. 

The court ruled all six defendants guilty of occupational embezzlement. Taking into account factors such as the circumstances of the offenses, the degree of social harm, and the defendants’ guilty pleas and expressions of remorse, the court sentenced defendant surnamed Yao to the heaviest penalty of four years and nine months in prison and a fine of 300,000 yuan. The others received prison terms of nine to 42 months and fines. 

Global Times