This story is bizarre enough to have been picked up by some foreign press.Here is a report from Vietnam.net
Heads roll at bank in wake of massive theft
17:45' 24/04/2007 (GMT+7)
The Agricultural Bank of China yesterday announced the dismissal of a number of senior officials and employees in the wake of a 51-million-yuan (US$6.60-million) theft from a branch in north China.
It is one of the nation's biggest cash thefts on record.
The bank demanded the resignation of Qu Jianyao, president of the ABC's Hebei Province branch. Deng Zhenguo, a vice president of the branch in charge of accounting, and Xu Yuesheng, in charge of security at the branch, were fired. All the employees in the cash-management center at the branch in Handan, a city in Hebei, where the massive theft occurred, have been suspended during the investigation.
The sacked people also include the president of the Handan branch, two of its vice presidents in charge of accounting and security and the director and vice directors of the cash center.
Han Zhongqi, the ABC's vice president, said the headquarters will mete out more punishment to those responsible when public security authorities finalize the investigation.
Han said the main suspects were the bank's employees, proving that loopholes lie in the management. The Handan branch signed a contract with a security company, which took the charge of safeguarding the vault and cash transport. The introduction of the service lowered the branch's vigilance, Han said.
Police last week arrested two suspects - Ren Xiaofeng, 34, and Ma Xiangjing, 37 - for the theft from the vault, which was discovered on April 14.
The duo, who worked for the cash center, have confessed to the crime.
They said they stole the money from the vault several times from last month and spent most in buying lottery tickets in the hope of making a fortune and then returning the money.
Afraid of being detected by the police, they decided to commit the last theft on April 14 and fled. The Ministry of Public Security last week put them on its most-wanted list, with a 200,000-yuan reward.
Three people will share the reward over Ren's arrest.