Forger sold counterfeit wood

A 70-year-old man was detained in Nanjing on Feb 19 on suspicion of stealing an iPhone 6 Plus cellphone. The man, surnamed Li, is accused of taking the phone as he walked past a basketball court in the city’s Qixia district on Feb 17. He then allegedly sold the phone, which is valued at more than 6,000 yuan ($873), for a fraction of that price because he did not know how to use it. Police said Li only got 200 yuan for the device and had no previous criminal record. A man in Pingyang was detained on Feb 8 on suspicion of faking authentication documents to cheat a buyer out of 1.68 million yuan ($244,200). The alleged swindler, surnamed Lin, stands accused of passing off a length of wood worth 200 yuan for a rare piece of phoebe nanmu, an endangered species of evergreen tree that is endemic to southern China and Vietnam. The buyer, surnamed Wang, sought police help after discovering the wood was fake. Phoebe nanmu is slow growing, highly resistant to decay and was used in the construction of the Forbidden City. A 72-year-old man from Beijing underwent gender reassignment surgery in Huizhou on Feb 15. Xin Yue had breast implants and underwent vaginoplasty as part of the operation, which lasted several hours. Before going under the knife, he had to complete a series of tests and answer more than 1,000 questions to ensure he was ready for gender reassignment. Xin, who married in 1970, has a daughter and was accompanied to the hospital for his surgery by his wife, who said she fully supported her husband’s decision.