DIGIVESTASI - China has executed Li Jianping, the former Communist Party Secretary of Hohhot City, Inner Mongolia, on charges of corruption amounting to 3 billion yuan (approximately $460 million) on Tuesday, December 17. The execution was carried out after Li had a final meeting with his family.

Li Jianping was found guilty in September 2022 of several crimes, including corruption, bribery, embezzlement of public funds, and collusion with criminal groups. The high court revealed that Li illegally exploited his position to embezzle more than 1.437 billion yuan (around $220 million) from state-owned enterprises through fraudulent schemes. Of this amount, approximately 289 million yuan (around $42 million) remained unrecovered before the scheme was uncovered.

Additionally, Li accepted bribes totaling over 577 million yuan (around $87 million) in exchange for favors provided to others. He also embezzled over 1.06 billion yuan (around $162 million) in public funds, with approximately 404 million yuan (around $62 million) still unrecovered before the case was exposed. This information was reported by China Daily.

The case represents the largest individual corruption scandal in China’s history, according to Caixin. Previously, high-profile corruption cases resulting in the death penalty had never reached the magnitude of Li's.

One notable earlier case involved Lai Xiaomin, former Communist Party Secretary and Chairman of Huarong Asset Management, who was sentenced to death in January 2021 by a Tianjin court. Lai was accused of accepting nearly 1.8 billion yuan ($270 million) in bribes and engaging in various other forms of corruption.

In May of last year, Bai Tianhui, a former general manager, was also sentenced to death after being found guilty of accepting over 1.1 billion yuan ($170 million) in bribes.

Other similar cases include Xu Maiyong, the former mayor of Hangzhou, who was executed in 2011 for accepting over 160 million yuan ($24 million) in bribes and embezzling over 53 million yuan ($8 million). Jiang Renjie, the former mayor of Suzhou, was also executed in the same year for corruption exceeding 100 million yuan ($15 million).

Zheng Xiaoyu, Director of the China Food and Drug Administration, was executed in 2007 after being convicted of taking 6.49 million yuan ($1 million) in bribes in a major scandal affecting public health. Earlier, in 1999, Lin Shiyuan, a former Deputy Secretary of Qijiang Chongqing, also faced execution for accepting 110,000 yuan ($17,000) in bribes, according to the South China Morning Post.

Find more news and articles on Google News