Xiao Jianhua Chinese Canadian Billionaire Sentenced to 13 Years for Financial Crimes, the Chinese Canadian billionaire and onetime trusted financier to China’s ruling elite, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Friday, and his company fined $8 billion, after he pleaded guilty to bribery and other crimes that the authorities said had “seriously jeopardized” the country’s financial security.
Mr. Xiao, whose Tomorrow Group umbrella of companies was once worth hundreds of billions of dollars, was also fined $1 million, a Shanghai court said on Friday.
One of several Chinese business tycoons caught in the cross hairs of a crackdown on corruption, Mr. Xiao was snatched from his home in a luxury Hong Kong hotel in 2017 and disappeared into Chinese custody. There was no news of him until 2020 American Airlines Reports, when Chinese officials confirmed he was on the mainland and cooperating with the government in restructuring his businesses. Last month, he re-emerged to stand trial in a Shanghai court, but the authorities kept details of the charges against him a secret.
His trial, which began on July 4, was attended by top Chinese officials, including deputies to the National People’s Congress and members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s state news media reported on Friday. Mr. Xiao and his business relationships — which reached as high as the family members of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping — were once an illustration of the close ties between China’s business world and the political elite.
The Tomorrow Group empire came to symbolize the excesses of China Inc., and its demise in 2020 was a signal from regulators that an era of freewheeling finance, in which wealthy executives used their political connections to build huge companies that scooped up trophy assets at home and abroad, was over.
The Shanghai First Intermediate Court said on Friday that Mr. Xiao had been convicted of several charges, including illegally absorbing public funds, betraying the use of entrusted property and illegally using funds and bribery. Mr. Xiao had “surrendered, admitted guilt and accepted punishment,” it said, adding that he also cooperated in helping to recover stolen funds.
Tomorrow Group did not respond to a request for comment, and Mr. Xiao did not immediately respond to a request for comment through an intermediary. The Canadian Embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It had previously said that the Chinese authorities rejected several requests submitted by the embassy to attend the trial of Mr. Xiao, who holds Canadian citizenship.
Using Tomorrow Group, Mr. Xiao built up financial ties in companies that stretched into all areas of China’s economy, from banking and insurance to rare metals, coal and real estate. It had financial stakes in some of China’s biggest firms, including the insurer Ping An and financial institutions like Huaxia Bank, Industrial Bank and Harbin Bank.
