Dongguan Times
July 23, 2008

Earlier this month, several newspapers reported on Yang Jun, a 23-year-old migrant worker in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, who heroically saved a woman from being kidnapped.

It was reported that on the night of July 6, when Yang saw a gang of three dragging a woman into their car, he tried to stop them. He received a knife slash on an arm and had an upper arm broken. The gang fled the scene after Yang was injured.

After local media broke the story, Yang was heralded as hero and some admirers even sent him money. However, today's Dongguan Times reported that both he and Cheng Yan, the woman he saved, are now being held for lying to the police.

When the two were first interviewed by the police, they both denied that they knew each other. Since then it has been proved this is not true: Yang and Cheng not only knew each other, they were very close and they were together when the crime occurred.

The newspaper article said the two conspired to lie to the police because they thought the government would only pay for Yang's medical treatment if they believed he was wounded while attempting to save a stranger. Yang is a migrant worker, and the treatment for his knife wound and broken arm were too expensive for him to pay alone.