Chinese Man Fakes Death to Escape DUI Charges
A Chinese man arrested for drunk driving staged an elaborate fake death involving a coffin and cooling equipment to evade prosecution, but was caught through surveillance footage and arrested in April with additional charges for his failed
A Chinese man has become an online sensation after attempting to evade drunk driving charges through an implausible fake death scheme involving family members. The man, identified as Sae "Sio," was arrested on drunk driving charges in January and had two prior convictions for unlicensed and impaired driving. Under Chinese law, drunk driving carries penalties including license suspension, one to six months detention, and fines.
Sio claimed he was heavily indebted and feared a criminal record would ruin his chances at a fresh start, so he devised an elaborate escape plan. Months later, he purchased a coffin and scattered empty medicine bottles around his home to suggest a drug overdose. He used cooling equipment to lower his body temperature to appear corpse-like, while his family told authorities his face was disfigured from the overdose and kept it covered. Before sunset that day, his mother and grandmother hastily buried the coffin, while Sio fled to Yunnan province.
When police arrived to investigate, they could not conduct an autopsy as the coffin was already buried. However, multiple suspicious circumstances raised red flags: the family never sought hospital treatment, there was no death certificate from a hospital, no funeral documentation, and no proper household registration cancellation. Relatives and villagers also reported that no one except his mother and grandmother had seen his face.
Police expanded their investigation by reviewing surveillance footage, financial transactions, and phone records, which confirmed Sio was still alive. He was arrested in April and sentenced to five months detention plus a 20,000 yuan fine—roughly equivalent to 100,000 baht. His mother and grandmother were charged with harboring a criminal. The prosecutor noted that staging death to evade the law not only fails to prevent conviction but can result in additional charges. The story went viral on Chinese social media, gaining over 10 million views, with netizens criticizing that the situation could have been avoided by not driving drunk in the first place.
