A former boss of China's largest insurer, China Life, has been sentenced to death for corruption, state media reported, an exceptional verdict in the business world.
Wang Bin, who was also the top representative of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in this state-owned company, was found guilty of accepting 325 million yuan (41.5 million euros) in bribes. He is also accused of having hidden some 56 million yuan (7.1 million euros) in foreign currencies in bank accounts opened by his relatives in Hong Kong.
Wang Bin, 64, was sentenced to a “suspended death sentence” which will be commuted to life in prison, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.
China launched a vast anti-corruption campaign in 2012, after President Xi Jinping took over as head of the CCP.
Since then, more than a million and a half Communist Party cadres have been sanctioned.
This operation, popular with public opinion, is also suspected of serving to sideline personalities opposed to the president's line.
Death sentences for corruption in business circles are more unusual. In 2021, however, the former boss of an investment fund, Lai Xiaomin, was executed. The prosecution accused him of having received 215 million euros in bribes and of being “polygamous”.
Mr. Lai made a confession in January 2020 broadcast by state television. Images of an apartment in Beijing, supposedly belonging to him, with safes and cabinets filled with bundles of cash, were then shown.
Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, September 13, 2023
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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