Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg
Beijing (AP) – The former head of a Chinese state-owned wealth management company was executed Friday on charges of taking bribes as an unusually severe punishment for a recent corruption case.
Lai Xiaomin of China Huarong Asset Management Co., was one of thousands of officials who became entangled in a long-running anti-graft campaign led by President Xi Jinping. Others, including China’s former insurance regulator, have been sentenced to prison.
Lai, 58, was put to death by a court in Tianjin, east of Beijing, the government announced.
Tianjin Second Intermediate People’s Court ruled in January that the death was justified because Lai was accepting “extremely huge” bribes to make investments, offer construction contracts, help with promotions and render other favors.
Lai asked or collected 1.8 billion yuan ($ 260 million) in ten years, the court said. It said one bribe amounted to more than 600 million yuan ($ 93 million). He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan ($ 4 million) and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Lai “endangered national financial security and financial stability,” said a comment on the state television website.
The death penalty “was his responsibility, and he deserved it,” the commentary said.
Most death sentences imposed by Chinese courts are suspended for two years and usually commuted to life. Death sentences without the possibility of delay are rare.
Huarong is one of four entities created in the 1990s to purchase non-performing loans from government banks. They expanded into banking, insurance, real estate finance and other areas.
Lai was investigated by the ruling Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled later that same year.
Lai was also accused of squandering public money, illegally organizing banquets, engaging in sexual intercourse with multiple women and taking bribes, the anti-corruption organization said in a statement.
2018.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan (tens of millions of dollars) in cash from Lai’s properties, Chinese business news magazine Caixin reported in 2018.