Five go on trial for gold smuggling

Five people linked to a collapsed Chinese peer-to-peer lender have gone on trial for gold smuggling, the first court case in a scandal that allegedly bilked investors of 58 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) nationwide.

The five smuggled 1,239 gold bars weighing a total of 125.5 kilograms from Southwest China's Yunnan province to neighboring Myanmar in October last year, prosecutors said during a trial on Thursday at a court in Puer city, Yunnan. At current world market prices, the gold is worth about $4.8 million.

The five people were also accused of illegally crossing the border between China and Myanmar multiple times last year, Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.