In 1973 Paul Newman and Robert Redford carried out a great horse-racing betting scam in a movie called "The Sting." The plot of the movie was based on the fact that there is a 3 hour time difference between the east and west coasts of America. The con-men used this to send information by wire, which enables bettors at the other end to place bets on races that have already been run and thus win huge amounts of money.

No Hollywood ending
What we have in this operation which ended in a gruesome double real-life murder are people working a scam based on football matches shown on TV. It seems that the TV broadcast in China is about a minute behind the live action in the stadium, so gambling syndicates would place employees at games to gain an advantage.

So many people were recruited to watch live games that the gambling bosses needed agents to manage them. This was the path to the murder.

Double-murder
The man who was murdered, Zhen Xing Yang along with his girlfriend Xi Zhou, both 25, placed ads under the name CICI-UK, the girlfriend's nickname, on the ‘Powerappple' website last October. The ad read: "Work: watch football games and send live information to people."

More recently an ad was placed that read, "UK-based football 'information' company looking for live information from the Mexican League."

Mexico connection
Could it be that the Mexican crime gangs resented anyone crashing into their territory? Could this be the work of the Chinese Triads?

Many theories are being examined by the police. The murders were brutal. Both Yang and his girlfriend had been killed in a savage, prolonged attack with a knife and another sharp-edged implement. Bruising to Yang's forearms had been sustained up to an hour before he suffered the blows to his head that killed him. His girlfriend had been beaten and suffocated.

The couple's black and white cat had been drowned and hidden in the bathroom in a bowl of water covered with a towel and a pair of kitchen gloves.

Northumbria police believe the killer or killers were known to their victims because they appear not to have forced entry into the apartment. But why this popular couple, who met at Newcastle University where they were studying for MAs in 2005, was targeted is unclear.

Gambling scam
Now Internet forums for the Chinese community are buzzing with one particular theory: that Yang had been involved in shadowy businesses, and gained some dangerous enemies.

It is also emerging that Yang failed to make payments he had promised to people - presumably agents he had hired in his betting business.

With the help of Mandarin interpreters, police are trawling through Internet forums,   examining a computer and three mobile phones taken from the couple's flat.

Detective Superintendent Steve Wade, leading the investigation, said: "Community intelligence supported by the examination of computer equipment and mobile call data has shown that both of the victims were involved in fraudulent activity which has angered and upset a number of people."