China’s Evergrande real estate group Hui Ka Yan has been sentenced to life in prison in large-scale fraud case.
According to Reuters, the world's most-indebted property developer, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, August 20, by a Chinese court, which ordered all his personal property confiscated.
Hui Ka Yan pleaded guilty in April to eight charges, including misuse of funds, fundraising fraud and illegally taking public deposits.
Evergrande, once China's premier developer, has defaulted since 2021 on most of its $300 billion in liabilities, its troubles emblematic of a crisis in the property sector that has long dragged on the world's second-biggest economy.
The court sentenced another 56 people with charges related to Evergrande, including Hui’s sons Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe. The sentences ranged from 22 months to 18 years, according to Xinhua.
“The amount involved in the crime is exceptionally large, the circumstances are particularly heinous, exceptionally heavy economic losses have been caused, and the harm to society is extremely grave,” the report said.
Hui's sentence ends his rags-to-riches story but is unlikely to bring much solace to Evergrande's domestic and foreign creditors.
In pictures released by the court, a grey-haired Hui, 67, stood flanked by two officers, wearing a long-sleeved, navy blue collared shirt, as the court read out his sentence.
"The criminal acts of Evergrande Group, Hengda Real Estate, and Hui Ka Yan ... involved particularly huge amounts and egregious circumstances, caused particularly significant economic losses and caused particularly serious social harm, and should be severely punished according to law," the court said in a statement.
Comments by Evergrande homeowners in a social media group included: "All ordinary citizens have paid the cost," "Imprisonment is meant to protect him. If he comes out, his life is in jeopardy" and "What about our money?"
In addition to Hui's sentence, the court said it had fined Evergrande 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) and its main subsidiary Hengda 7 billion yuan, and sentenced five other senior executives to fines and prison terms ranging from six to 18 years.
Altogether, 56 people linked to Evergrande, other than Hui, received sentences on Thursday.
