Lai Xiaomin, a former head of an investment fund accused of receiving bribes worth more than 215 million euros, was executed Friday morning, January 29, state television reported. The businessman was sentenced to death in early January, an unusual sentence in China against a top economic leader. The court had also found him guilty of “polygamy”.
Justice accused him of having obtained 215 million euros in bribes and of having tried to obtain 13 million more. She also attributed to him embezzlement of public funds of 3.1 million euros. The amounts were “extremely large, the circumstances particularly serious and the intentions extremely malicious”, a court in Tianjin (north) had indicated in its judgment.
Public confessions in January
The boss of the China Huarong group, whose mode of execution was not specified, was also found guilty of having “lived a long time with other women”, outside of his marriage, of which he had ” illegitimate children ”. In January 2020, he made a confession broadcast by public television CCTV. Images of an apartment in Beijing, supposed to belong to him, with safes and cupboards filled with wads of cash, were then released. Lai Xiaomin, who had previously worked at the central bank and for the bank gendarme, claimed not to have “spent a single penny”. “I did not dare to spend” the money, he said. Images had also shown luxury cars and gold bars that the accused allegedly accepted as bribes.
China Huarong Asset Management is one of the largest managers in China of bad debts (ie with a high probability of default). China launched a massive anti-corruption campaign in 2012, following President Xi Jinping’s arrival as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since then, over one and a half million CCP cadres have been sanctioned. This operation, popular with the public, is also suspected of serving to remove personalities opposed to the president’s line. China keeps the utmost secrecy on the executions of those sentenced to death. The human rights organization Amnesty International estimates that thousands of common law prisoners are executed every year in the country.
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