Last Suspect of China’s Record USD485 Million Bank Corruption Case Faces Trial
Wang Fangran
DATE:  May 19 2023
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Last Suspect of China’s Record USD485 Million Bank Corruption Case Faces Trial Last Suspect of China’s Record USD485 Million Bank Corruption Case Faces Trial

(Yicai Global) May 19 -- China's largest USD485 million bank corruption case in the past over 70 years is coming to an end as the final suspect of a Bank of China case has faced the court in Guangdong province after an international chase of over two decades.

The Intermediate People's Court of Jiangmen will announce its verdict after Xu Guojun, former president of a Kaiping arm of the state-owned commercial lender, pleaded guilty to embezzling public money during the public hearing on May 17.

Authorities and BOC have recovered over CNY2 billion (USD284.3 million) of stolen money linked to the case from overseas, per the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. 

This is the biggest bank corruption case since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It involves Xu Guojun, as well as his two predecessors of Yu Zhendong and Xu Chaofan, who abused their positions of power to seize over CNY4 billion of funds from 1993 to 2000 by making use of clearing system loopholes to issue loans to transfer money to their overseas accounts via casinos in Macau and Las Vegas.

Based on the earlier sentences of Xu Chaofan and Yu, Xu Guojun will likely spend less than 15 years in jail, an industry insider told Yicai Global. The three men returned to China to be sentenced after fleeing to the United States as the BOC updated its system and discovered the gap of USD483 million in the accounts in October 2001. Yu was given a 12-year prison sentence in 2004 and Xu Chaofan got 13 years in jail in 2018.

Editors: Shi Yi, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi

Follow Yicai Global on
Keywords:   Corruption,China,BOC,Graft