Man sentenced for phony Olympics website scam

BEIJING -- A man convicted of operating a phony official Olympics website and cheating money was sentenced on Friday to six months in prison in Beijing.

The Haidian District People's Court of Beijing Municipality passed the jail sentence and a fine of 2,000 yuan (271 US dollars) on Liao Peigui, for making 3,000 yuan (406 US dollars) by goading two netizens into entering fake prize draws on a website he "cloned" from the official one of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG).

Each netizen he cheated was asked to transfer the "award acceptance fee" of 1,500 yuan (203 US dollars) to an account he opened in March to cash their awards, including 28,000 (3,798 US dollars) and two tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Liao, who worked as a computer engineer in south China's Hainan Province, was previously suspected of making 400,000 yuan (52,631.6 US dollars) with the help of the phony Olympics website when he was arrested in September.

But it finally turned out that only two victims were involved, according to the court verdict.

China launched a six-month campaign last April targeting online pornography, illegal lotteries, contraband trade and fraud.

The official Olympics website, www.beijing2008.cn, attracts an average 1.1 million page impressions every day this year, according to BOCOG.