Former China deputy central bank head gets suspended death sentence for taking bribes

By Reuters

FILE - Then China Construction Bank Corp Vice President Fan Yifei attends a press conference in Hong Kong on April 6, 2006.

China's former deputy central bank governor, Fan Yifei, has been sentenced to death for taking bribes with a two-year reprieve, state media said on Thursday, amid a sweeping anti-graft drive in the financial sector.

Fan was found guilty of illegally accepting property worth more than 386 million yuan, around $54.55 million, for taking advantage of his senior positions at the central bank and other financial institutions, including China Construction Bank, according to the report, citing a Chinese court.

Following the two-year reprieve, Fan's death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment, with no possibility of commutation or parole, state media cited Huanggang Intermediate People's Court in Hubei province as saying.

"Fan Yifei accepted bribes of an extremely large amount, the circumstances of his crimes were extremely serious, the social impact was extremely bad, and the interests of the state and the people suffered extremely heavy losses," the court was quoted as saying.

Fan, 60, is the highest-ranking official at the People's Bank of China to be arrested under President Xi Jinping's anti-graft drive in the past decade, in a campaign aimed at weeding out corrupt officials in the financial sector.

Reuters was not able to contact Fan for comment.

Reuters

Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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MY TAKE 

This is how serious countries that want to develop, treat corrupt people and officials. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, corrupt officials past and present are pampered and shielded for more corruption.

We want to copy from America and China but we don't to copy the way China fights corruption. 

Interestingly, in China, Europe and America, there are strong institutions and not strong people.