Two principals of an eight-member gang charged with kidnapping and selling 12 baby boys have been given the death penalty in southwestern Yunnan Province, local government said Thursday.

Six members of a family surnamed Wu were given four years to life imprisonment by the Intermediate People's Court of Kunming, provincial capital of Yunnan.

The court accused Pan Mingquan of kidnapping 12 boys aged between 2 to 3 at the district of Guandu in Kunming and selling them to Wu Daping between August 2004 and April 2005 at the price of 4,260 yuan (532 U.S. dollars) each.

The Wus then sold the children for between 15,000 and 23,000 yuan (1,875 and 2,875 dollars) to families in the provinces of Hebei in north China and Henan in central China, according to the court.

Police cracked the case last April when two members of the Wus were about to transport another stolen child by train to Henan.

Most of the children were kidnapped from the families of rural farmers working in Kunming and police have sent all the children back to their families, according to the public security department of Kunming.

Source: Xinhua