Two Chinese women were recently caught shoplifting. They are said to be infamous for stealing clothes from upscale clothing shops. Now, they have repeatedly escaped going to jail by using breastfeeding and pregnancy excuses. Over the past two years, women named Xiao Qing and Zhu Zhu have reportedly stolen about 2,800 yuan ( Rs 32,858) worth of clothes. After numerous dodges from the Chinese police over the excuse of being a nursing mother, the duo were finally arrested in March. Xiao Qing was sentenced to one year in jail, while Zhu Zhu was imprisoned for eight months for theft. The news has gone viral. The netizens of mainland China are disappointed over the fact that the children were used as tools for committing crimes. They called it ‘utterly disgraceful’ on the social media platform Weibo, as quoted in Chinese media reports.
According to the South China Morning Post report, 30 and 39-year-old best friends named Xiao Qing and Xue Xue met through their jointly run clothing business. They suffered losses during the Covid-19 pandemic and were forced to close their shop, stopping their only source of income. Zhu Zhu has been married and divorced twice. She has seven children from her marriages — three from the first and four from the second. Xiao Qing has four children. Stressed to meet the financial demands of raising their children, the best friends turned towards crime after exploiting a loophole in Chinese law.
According to a law in China, pregnant and nursing mothers can avoid imprisonment for their offences. As a result, they started using their breastfeeding excuse to escape imprisonment and continued shoplifting from the upscale clothing shops. CCTV footage of their crime shows the duo using an empty baby stroller as the cover to steal the clothes. They used to stuff the items into it while walking inside the shop and quickly escape through the exit gate. During an interrogation, Zhu Zhu said that they used magnets to disable the security tags on the clothes and then sold those items for cash, as reported by SCMP.
They are currently serving their sentences outside the jail. They are constantly being monitored at their homes or other designated residences by the Chinese police officials.
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