China has sentenced a former finance chairman to death on charges related to bribery, bigamy, and embezzlement.
Lai Xiaomin, who has been called China’s …
China has sentenced a former finance chairman to death on charges related to bribery, bigamy, and embezzlement. Lai Xiaomin, who has been called China’s most corrupt financial official, was investigated in 2018 over his time as the chairman of banking giant China Huarong Asset Management. The Chinese government later found him guilty of accepting $277 million in bribes between 2008 and 2018, according to the court in Tianjin. Xiaomin “endangered national financial security and financial stability,” reads the court filings, according to Bloomberg. He confessed to taking bribes in January when he said he kept the money in an apartment but “didn’t spend a cent.” The court will confiscate all of Xiaomin’s personal assets — including lavish goods like properties, luxury watches, and flashy cars, Bloomberg notes. Capital punishment in the form of lethal injection is typically how the Chinese Communist Party performs executions. Amnesty International estimated that the nation carried out thousands of executions in 2019.
