A top university law graduate in China has been arrested for stealing donation money from Buddhist temples in a number of provinces by changing their receipt QR codes to his own. The man, whose identity was not released, confessed to the police that he had stolen more than 30,000 yuan (US$4,200) from temples in the southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Chongqing, and the northwestern Shaanxi province this year, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. He is believed to have a master’s degree in law from one of the country’s most prestigious universities.
The case came to light after police in Shaanxi released video footage of him at Famen Temple of Baoji city this month. A clip from the temple’s surveillance camera shows the man kneeling in front of a statue of Buddha that was next to the donation box, along with other visitors. He then places a piece of paper with his personal QR code over that of the temple’s code on the box.
The man then bows towards the Buddha three times with his hands clasped together in prayer. Before leaving the temple, he put a banknote in the box, the value of which is not clear. After the police caught him, he confessed he had applied the same technique to steal from other Buddhist institutions in other provinces.
All the money he took was returned, police said. The story has attracted widespread interest online, with 6.1 million views on Douyin alone.
“A Chinese saying goes that there is a deity above us, so we should not do bad things. Now this should be changed into that there is a surveillance camera above us,” one online observer said. “He studies law, but still breaks the law,” said another.
Stealing donations from Buddhist temples is not a rare occurrence in China. In July, a man in southeastern Jiangxi province was arrested for sneaking into a temple and breaking into the donation box several times. Also, a man in Shanghai was arrested last year for stealing money from the box in a Buddhist nunnery.
He defended himself by saying he had just borrowed the cash after receiving approval from Buddha whose hand gesture signified that “it is OK to do that”..
