Beijing (AFP) - A Chinese thief
painstakingly wrote out 11 pages of telephone numbers from a stolen iPhone and
sent them to the owner, state media said Monday.
The pickpocket is believed to have
taken the Apple handset from Zou Bin when they shared a taxi, the Xinhua news
agency said.
Zou had nearly 1,000 contact
numbers in the device and with no backup copy -- like millions of other people
around the world -- he was more concerned about losing the data than the phone
itself, it added.
"I know you are the man who
sat beside me. I can assure you that I will find you," he said in a text
message to the thief.
"Look through the contact
numbers in my mobile and you will know what trade I am in," he added.
"Send me back the phone to the address below if you are sensible."
The tone of the message was unmistakably
threatening -- Zou works in the pub industry, which in China is widely held to
have links with gangs.
Days later he received a parcel
containing his SIM card and 11 pages of carefully handwritten contact numbers,
Xinhua said, adding he was "fossilised" by the result -- a Chinese
colloquialism for astonished.
"It would take a while to
write from one to one thousand, let alone names and a whole string of digits. I
suppose (the thief's) hand is swelling," Zou was quoted as saying.
The theft earlier this month is
believed to have happened somewhere between Yiyang and Changsha in the central
province of Hunan.
Chinese Internet users gave the
thief plaudits for his efforts, dubbing him "the conscience of the (theft)
industry".
One user of Sina Weibo, a Chinese
equivalent of Twitter, posted: "What a sympathetic and faithful thief, one
who values professional ethics."
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