As Beijing’s crackdown on the financial industry continues, the former chairman of China Life Insurance, Wang Bin, has become the latest high-profile leader to be imprisoned as a result of the government’s actions.
According to a judgement from the court that was obtained by the BBC, Mr. Wang was given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.
According to the judgement, the punishment will be changed to a life sentence without the possibility of parole when it has been served for two years.
In April, the authorities issued a warning that the crackdown would not be ending anytime soon.
A court in Jinan, which is located in the Shandong region of eastern China, found Mr. Wang guilty of accepting bribes totaling 325 million yuan ($44.6 million; £35.7 million).
Mr. Wang, who served as the Communist Party leader of the company, was also given a term of one year in prison for illegally concealing 54.2 million yuan in deposits made outside of China.
In President Xi Jinping’s more than two-year long drive on corruption in the $60 trillion (£48 trillion) industry, he is the latest head from a large Chinese financial organization to get caught up in the investigation. He is the man in charge of a significant financial firm.
After being tried for and found guilty of both bigamy and corruption in 2021, Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of Huarong, one of the largest state-controlled asset management enterprises in China, was put to death the same year.
In the same year, the former chairman of the China Development Bank, Hu Huaibang, was found guilty of accepting bribes totaling 85.5 million yuan and was sentenced to life in prison.
Since his disappearance in February of this year, Bao Fan, the chief executive of China Renaissance Holdings and one of the most high-profile billionaire bankers in the country, has been “cooperating in an investigation being carried out by certain authorities.”
In March, an investigation was opened into Liu Liange, who was the party chief at the Bank of China. According to the authorities, Mr. Liu is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.”
In April, the authorities announced that they were conducting an investigation into Li Xiaopeng, who had previously served as the head of the asset management firm China Everbright Group, which is currently owned by the state.
Fan Yifei, a deputy governor at the country’s central bank, was taken into custody in June on suspicion of accepting bribes and is currently the subject of a criminal investigation. In addition to this, he has been kicked out of the Communist Party.
