Firecracker attack on elderly couple's home

By Zhao Yanrong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-18 13:17

Chen Ling attempts to repair her balcony window on Monday.

An elderly couple has blamed violent loan brokers for a terrifying attack on their Chaoyang district home.

Chen Ling, aged 68, said five firecrackers blasted a hole in the window, breaking the washing machine below it, at their apartment in Yinghuayuan Community opposite the China Japan Friendship Hospital, on Monday at 4 am.

Chen and her 70-year-old husband surnamed Wang, were asleep at the time and did not see the attackers because of the distance from the bedroom.

However, Chen believed a group of loan brokers, who she said had threatened the couple more than 80 times in the past two years, were to blame. She said her 30-year-old son had borrowed money from several brokers for costs associated with running a business in Beijing.

"From 2007 to mid-2008, our son borrowed about 500,000 yuan from five usury loaners for his business in Beijing," Chen said.

"We have repaid more than 1 million yuan, but they still demand more money."

Chen said she was attacked on Oct 29 last year, and that the apartment was shot at on another occasion.

"They told us that they were just released from prison. I am almost 70 years old, but they beat me so hard last year that I bled," she said.

Chen's husband Wang said the brokers refused to cancel the debt after the family repaid the outstanding money, and kept demanding more.

"My son borrowed 40,000 yuan from one loan broker, but the loaner asked my wife to sign a note which said that my son borrowed 50,000 yuan plus 10,000 yuan interest," he said.

"I told him that we planned to return him 60,000 yuan on Aug 28 in the morning.

"That afternoon, he kidnapped my son to a hotel and robbed 70,000 yuan on him that we borrowed from one of my friends."

Chen said that police had told the couple that it would not intervene because it was an economic dispute. Chen said they had been told to ask the court for help.

Chen said one loan broker had signed a note acknowledging payment for a debt on Sept 28, 2008, but he still managed to sue their son in Dongcheng district court for failing to repay the loan in June this year.

She said the court ruled the loan receipt that the broker had signed was a fake, so the couple lost the case.

The local police station was not available for comment.