(Yicai Global) April 23 -- ZTE said the revelation that the Chinese telecoms giant has repaid nearly CNY900 million of the CNY2.1 billion (USD323.3 million) one of its former senior executives gained through fraud are “not totally true,” according to Beijing Business Today. The company did not elaborate.

A Guangdong court ruled that from 2015 to 2017, He Xuemei, former ZTE supervisor and labor union president, used high returns as bait to defraud nearly 9,000 people through the e-commerce platform of Yihe Tiancheng Investment Development, a wholly-owned unit of ZTE.

According to the court ruling, He did not return CNY899 million to 3,921 of the people she swindled. Shenzhen-based ZTE paid back the money for her.

He also embezzled CNY390 million from ZTE Yihe Investment and Development, a unit of ZTE’s labor union, and transferred CNY3.1 million from ZTE’s account to others for her personal use. Many of ZTE’s employees were involved.

She used the money to buy wealth management products and houses, buy and sell stocks, repay personal debts, and transferred some of the funds abroad.

He was convicted of fund-raising fraud, embezzlement and other crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The court also confiscated CNY20 million of her personal assets.

Editor: Peter Thomas