Six people have been sentenced to prison in Guangxi, China, after an assassination attempt failed because it was outsourced too many times.

A hitman was paid around 2 million yuan (S$385,000) by a local business owner to kill a rival.

But the hitman did what any good entrepreneur would do: He decided to pass on the job to another hitman, keeping half the money for himself.

This happened several times, with each hitman passing over the job to someone else, until the victim was alerted to the plot and called the police.

2013 case

In 2013, Tan Youhui, a real estate company owner in Nanning, decided to hire a hitman to kill off a competitor, whose surname is Wei.

Wei had previously filed a civil court case against Tan's company.

Tan hired a man called Xi Guangan, and paid him two million yuan (around S$385,000) to kill Wei.

The businessman also provided Xi with a copy of Wei's identity card, as well as his cell phone and license plate numbers to aid in the deed.

The hitmen all decided to subcontract the job to others

With the cash in hand, Xi subcontracted the job to someone else, and kept half the money for himself.

Xi paid another man named Mo Tianxiang one million yuan (around S$193,000) to kill Wei, and passed him the necessary documents.

He also went back to Tan to ask for an additional one million yuan for the job, but Tan would only give him the money once the job was complete.

Mo, the new hitman, had a similar idea, and decided to hire a man called Yang Kangsheng to kill Wei on his behalf.

Mo gave him 270,000 yuan (around S$52,000), and promised another 500,000 yuan (around S$96,000) once Wei was dead.

Yang, likely realising what a sweet gig this outsourcing business turned out to be, decided to hire another man named Yang Guangsheng to do his job for him.

Yang Guangsheng was given 200,000 yuan (around S$38,500) upfront, and was promised another 500,000 yuan after the job was done.

Finally, the second Yang, like the others before him, hired a man named Ling Xiansi to kill Wei, promising Ling 100,000 yuan (around S$19,300) once Wei is dead.

The last hitman felt 100,000 yuan was not worth getting his hands dirty

Ling, the last hitman in a chain of creative outsourcing, thought that 100,000 yuan was not worth killing somebody and getting his hands dirty.

Instead, he decided to contact Wei and convince him to fake his own death, so that Ling can get his reward without having to resort to murder.

Wei, being perhaps the only rational person in this case, decided simply to alert the authorities -- since he could die, otherwise.

All the six men involved in the murder attempt, which consists of Tan and the five hitmen, were sentenced to jail between two years and seven months to five years.

This goes to show that you can't trust anybody to do their jobs properly these days.

In other words, the only job well done is perhaps one you do by yourself.

Top image from Sohu.