Ant Farm Con Man Gets Death

A pyramid scheme built on an ant farm earned a Chinese entrepreneur over $400 million—and a death sentence. The sentence meted out to Wang Zhendong by a Chinese court last month is part of a nationwide crackdown on fraud. Wang swindled thousands of people by misrepresenting his wares as rare, medicinal ants, when in fact they were just…ants.

Victims tricked into putting their savings into ant futures were pleased by the verdict. Zhou Ping invested $6,500 she was saving for her daughter’s wedding. "He should just die. He hurt so many people," she says. (More China stories.)