A scheme involving seven non-existent cleaning staff members, complete with attendance records and monthly paychecks, unraveled after current employees reported irregularities to authorities. The fraudulent operation, which continued for over two years, was brought to light through a whistleblower complaint from frontline staff members.

In June 2026, the Yinzhou District Procuratorate in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, filed charges against Li and Mao. By early July of the same year, the local people's court sentenced Li to one year in prison and Mao to nine months behind bars, with Mao receiving a two-year probation period, on charges of occupational embezzlement. Li served as the logistics manager at a school in Ningbo, responsible for monitoring and evaluating the property management company's performance, while Mao held the position of cleaning manager at the property firm contracted by the school.

Familiarity developed through daily interactions, Li and Mao began collaborating in early 2021 to exploit system vulnerabilities for personal enrichment. As logistics manager, Li's signature was required on attendance sheets and payroll confirmations submitted by the property company before the school's finance department would release funds, including cleaning staff salaries, to the property firm's account for eventual distribution to individual bank cards. Recognizing that high turnover among cleaning positions made inflated headcounts difficult to detect, the two devised a plan to fabricate employees.

Li used identity documents belonging to relatives and friends to create seven fictional cleaning staff members, while Mao handled signing false labor agreements with the property company and manufacturing check-in records for these "shadow employees" in the attendance system. Li leveraged his review authority to approve the fraudulent attendance and payroll documentation, allowing the school's finance department to issue monthly salaries that ultimately flowed into bank cards registered under relatives' names but controlled entirely by Li. After funds arrived each month, Li withdrew cash and divided the proceeds privately with Mao, accumulating over 600,000 yuan in embezzled school funds over the two-year period.

The scheme eventually collapsed in September 2023 when on-campus cleaners noticed that several listed "colleagues" had never appeared on site despite receiving equal pay, prompting suspicions of unfairness that led to formal complaints to the school. Initially treating the matter as unilateral fraud by the property company, the school filed a civil lawsuit against the firm. However, during trial proceedings, the court's examination of financial transactions revealed that the inflated wages ultimately flowed into bank accounts controlled by Li, exposing the insider involvement and prompting the school to file a criminal complaint immediately.

Following investigation by the Yinzhou District Procuratorate, which reviewed bank statements and false labor agreements, authorities determined that Li, in his capacity as school logistics management personnel, used his signature approval authority in collusion with Mao to illegally appropriate school property on a substantial scale, constituting occupational embezzlement for both parties. Although Mao was not a school employee, his coordinated conspiracy with Li and joint execution of the crime through Li's official position made him liable as an accomplice under the law. Given their full restitution of stolen funds after arrest, the court rendered the aforementioned judgments accordingly.