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Corrupt banker sentenced 12 years in prison (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-04-01 14:46
Yu Zhendong, a corrupt banker in the South China's Guangdong Province accused
of embezzling huge amount of public money before fleeing to the United States,
has been sentenced to 12 years in prison by a court in Jiangmen City.
Yu
is the first corrupt Chinese official to be repatriated since China ratified the
United Nation's Convention Against Corruption in October, 2005.
The
Intermediate People's Court of Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, on Friday
sentenced Yu 12 years in prison and ordered confiscation of 1 million yuan
(125,000 dollars) on the charges of graft and embezzlement of public funds.
Yu was formerly the head of the Kaiping city branch of the Bank of China
(BOC), one of China's four biggest state-owned commercial banks.
Yu
collaborated with Xu Chaofan, former chief of BOC Kaiping Branch and Xu Guojun,
a manager, in embezzling 82.47 million U.S. dollars from the united fund of the
BOC. They made use of loopholes and then had the money remitted to their private
companies overseas to cover corporate expenditures, share and exchange trading,
expenses in their personal life and gambling.
In the meantime, the three
also collaborated in applying for loans with BOC Kaiping branch using the names
of other enterprises and embezzled 132 million U.S. dollars, 273 million yuan
(about 33.7 million US dollars) and 20 million Hong Kong dollars for operation
of their private companies overseas. They also obtained 67.3 million Hong Kong
dollars in illicit returns from private overseas companies.
Yu Zhendong,
Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun fled to Canada and the United States via Hong Kong in
October 2001.
During his stay in Hong Kong, Yu traded shares for cash
and transferred all the remaining sum of the money he embezzled to the bank
accounts of his relatives or casinos in the United States and Canada.
Yu
was sentenced to 144 months in prison in a federal court in Las Vegas in
February 2004 over money laundering, entering the United States with forged
documents, and immigration fraud.
He was returned to China two months
later on China's promise to exempt him from death. Before Yu, China's suspects
of severe economic crimes had never been sent back from the United States
through former law procedure. (For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates) |
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