A man who staged a robbery so he could go to jail to avoid the shame of being in debt was prosecuted by Chaoyang District People's Procuratorate, the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday.

The knife-wielding assailant, surnamed Zou, held up a man surnamed Zhang on Xiaoguandong Street in Chaoyang District about midnight, Sep 25, 2010, and chased Zhang into a police station, where he was overpowered by police.

Zou said he planned the robbery so he could be sent to prison, where he would avoid his creditors. Suffering a series of heavy financial losses in the stock and futures markets, he was too ashamed to ask his parents to help pay off his debt again, and instead chose robbery as a way to avoid his situation as well as his creditors.