An enterprising thief in eastern China has given new meaning to the phrase “highway robbery” by stealing an 800-metre-long stretch of the concrete road overnight.
Confused locals in the village of Sankeshu in Jiangsu province called the police to report that the segment of the road had mysteriously gone missing.
But police soon discovered that a man surnamed Zhu had hired a digger to rip out the road and trucks to ship the chunks of concrete to a stone materials factory which purchased them.
Zhu had been looking for a way to make money and felt that digging up and selling the concrete would be a good “business opportunity”, rationalising the move by saying a newly built road nearby had made the dug-up road obsolete.
The 500 tonnes of concrete slabs that Zhu removed were bought by the factory for 5,000 yuan ($795).
