A group of 10 Chinese men were sentenced to prison for stealing from a total of 11,500 World of Warcraft accounts. The leader of the group, Chen, bought hacked WoW accounts for a dollar each and emptied them, flogged the resulting gold for an average of $3 per account. One of Chen's accomplices branched out and started his own hacking "studio" to flip WoW accounts. It was so productive he hired several employees.

Chinese coppers investigated and there was an investigation and trial where Chen was found guilty, fined $8,000, and sentenced to two years in prison. The others involved were fined $1,000 and sentenced to just under two years in prison.

Their $10,800 in profits and computer equipment used was also confiscated by the authorities, who had rather a nice Christmas party this year with a WoW theme. Actually, we made that up. It does show that China is getting serious about Online gaming fraud.