A Chinese banker has been sentenced to life in prison in the country’s biggest-ever corruption case arising from the banking sector.
Xu Guojun, whose case involved more than US$483 million from 1993 to 2001, was convicted on charges of embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds by the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in Guangdong province on Wednesday.
Ex-Xinjiang official who led purge now under anti-corruption investigation
Xu, a former head of a Bank of China Kaiping branch in the city of Jiangmen, had been on the run for 20 years until he was extradited from the US in 2021.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
The court ruled that Xu, in his role as bank chief, and his accomplices had embezzled more than 900 million yuan (US$125.4 million) in US dollars, Hong Kong dollars and German marks.
Their misdeeds transpired through fraudulent loans, misappropriated loan repayments and the siphoning of bank funds to other accounts, it added.
The group was also found to have misappropriated more than 1.4 billion yuan worth of bank money for other illegal purposes.
“The amount of their embezzlement is particularly large,” the court said. “They have caused particularly significant damage to the interests of the state and the people.”
Along with imprisonment, Xu was deprived of political rights for life. His personal assets were confiscated, and he was ordered to surrender all his illegal gains, according to a court statement.
Xu said he accepted the sentences and would not appeal, the court noted.
His main accomplices, Yu Zhendong and Xu Chaofan, were repatriated to China in 2004 and 2018, respectively. Yu was sentenced to a 12-year jail term in 2006, and Xu received a 13-year sentence in 2021.
The trio fled the country after the Bank of China discovered a substantial deficit in the branch’s account. The men flew to Hong Kong and then Canada before eventually arriving in the US.
Xu Guojun had been on the Interpol’s wanted list since 2002.
Two other suspects in the case included Xu Chaofan’s wife, Kuang Wanfang, and Lai Mingmin, a former head of the Bank of China in Jiangmen.
Kuang was extradited from the US in 2015, while Lai, who was among China’s “100 suspects” on Interpol red notices, travelled voluntarily from Australia in 2018 to surrender and returned his stolen money after 17 years at large.
China indicts 52 per cent more cyber scammers than last year amid crackdown
Lai was responsible for ordering the branch to misappropriate at least US$21 million to cover the shortfall caused by his embezzlement, according to the court notice of his warrant.
The BOC Kaiping branch case is considered the largest to involve corruption and the banking sector since 1949. More than 2 billion yuan of the lost money has been recovered, local media reported.
More from South China Morning Post:
- China’s former railway head sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption
- China’s top corruption-buster warns of ‘risk of rebound’ in cases
- Chairman of China’s ‘little giant’ in chip materials returns after 8-month absence amid anti-corruption campaign
- China names General Wang Houbin as new PLA Rocket Force chief after former commanders snared in corruption scandal
For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2023.
