Six people have been sentenced to prison time in China’s southern region of Guangxi in a parable of the perils of using middlemen.

Back in 2013, a local real estate company owner named Tan Youhui in the provincial capital of Nanning decided that he wanted to bump off a competitor, surnamed Wei, who had filed a civil court case against his enterprises.

Tan sought out the services of a man named Xi Guangan, paying him 2 million yuan ($282,000) in cash to do the deed and providing him with a copy of Wei’s identity card as well as his cell phone and license plate numbers.

Xi took that money and handed half of it over to another man named Mo Tianxiang, telling him to kill Wei and passing along the relevant materials. Xi then went back to Tan and asked for an additional 1 million yuan. Tan agreed but said he would only give him the money after Wei was dead.

Meanwhile, Mo went out and hired a man named Yang Kangsheng to carry out the killing, giving him 270,000 yuan and promising another 500,000 yuan after the job was done.

Yang, however, turned around and handed off the assignment to yet another man named Yang Guangsheng, giving him 200,000 yuan upfront and promising an additional 500,000 yuan once he murdered Wei.

Continuing the change, Yang Guangsheng hired a man named Ling Xiansi to kill Wei, telling him that he would be paid 100,000 yuan ($14,000) after the deed was done.

If you had trouble keeping track of all that, here’s a chart:

Ling, however, thought that earning 100,000 yuan wasn’t really worth murdering someone. Instead, he hatched a plan, contacting Wei and meeting his “victim” at a coffee shop in April 2014 where he tried to convince him to help fake his own death.

Rather than go through all that trouble, Wei appears to have gone to the cops.

The court case against the six people involved in the murder plot wrapped up on Friday with the final judgment in the case being as follows: Tan: 5 years in prison, Xi: 3 years and six months, both Yangs: 3 years and 3 months, Mo: 3 years, Ling: 2 years and 7 months.

It really just goes to show you, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.