A Shanghai court said on Friday it had sentenced the Chinese-Canadian billionaire Xiao Jianhua to 13 years in prison and fined his Tomorrow Holdings conglomerate a record 55.03bn yuan (£6.8bn), Guardian UK.
A Shanghai first intermediate court charged Xiao and his Tomorrow Holdings conglomerate with illegally absorbing public deposits, betraying the use of entrusted property, the illegal use of funds and bribery. Xiao was fined 6.5m yuan for the crimes.
The court said Xiao and Tomorrow “severely violated financial management order” and “hurt state financial security”.
From 2001 to 2021, Xiao and Tomorrow gave shares, real estate, cash and other assets to government officials totalling more than 680m yuan, to evade financial supervision and seek illegitimate interests.
China-born Xiao, known to have links to the country’s Communist party elite, has not been seen in public since 2017 after he was investigated amid a state-led conglomerate crackdown.
In July 2020, nine of the group’s related institutions were seized by Chinese regulators as part of a crackdown on risks posed by financial conglomerates.
Written by Adekunle Biodun