Update | Staff of fugitive tycoon Guo Wengui jailed, punished for fraud
Three senior employees of the Chinese billionaire wanted on graft charges had pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining loans and buying foreign currency
Three senior employees of the fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui were sentenced on Friday for fraudulently obtaining loans and buying foreign currency by a court in northeast China, state media reported.
The three executives at Guo’s flagship company Beijing Pangu Investment were instructed by the tycoon to use fraudulent means such as producing fake contracts and company stamps to obtain huge amount of loans, which had “disrupted the order of the country’s financial management and imperiled its financial security”, the Dalian Xigang People’s Court said in a statement.
Two of the executives also used falsified vouchers and receipts to obtain large amounts of foreign currency, the court added.
The three had pleaded guilty to the charges at the court last Friday.
Lu Tao, Pangu’s deputy general manager, was sentenced to 27 months behind bars on Friday.
Chief financial officer Yang Ying and Xie Honglin, a financial manager, were both handed a two-year jail term suspended for three years. It means that if they behave well over the three years they can avoid imprisonment.