A good prank can deliver some great laughs, but a prank gone wrong, well, that can land someone behind bars, which is exactly what happened to one Beijing man.
According to The Star, the man, identified as Wu, simply wanted to pull a blackmail prank on his colleague, Zhong. To pull it off, he wrote a letter demanding that his colleague place around $90,000 in a flower bed nearby before noon on April 3 and threatened the man’s children. Wu also told his co-worker not to contact the police — which is where things went sideways.
Zhong reported the letter to police and Wu later turned himself in, claiming that it was all part of an April Fool’s Day prank, however, the courts didn’t see it that way.
The courts called Wu’s actions “far beyond the scope of jokes” and fined him $1500 and three and a half years in jail.