Founder of China’s Evergrande jailed for life after pleading guilty to fraud

Hui Ka Yan, the founder of Evergrande, the largest property developer in China, has been sentenced to life in prison for fraud. Once named China's richest man by Forbes with a net worth of $42.5 billion in 2017, Hui was found guilty in April of eight charges, including misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, extending loans illegally, fraudulently issuing securities, and bribery.

The company he founded, Evergrande Group, received a fine of 8.8 billion yuan ($950 million), and its property arm was fined 7 billion yuan. Chinese state media reported these fines. The Shenzhen intermediate people's court in southern China ruled that between 2016 and 2021, Hui violated state laws through large-scale financial fraud to inflate assets and conceal liabilities, severely disrupting the socialist market economy and causing heavy economic losses.

Over 50 individuals linked to Evergrande were also sentenced, with prison terms ranging from 20 months to 18 years. The crisis began in 2020 when the Chinese government imposed regulations limiting the debt property companies could hold, causing construction to stall and financial struggles for companies amid weak demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Evergrande's default on most of its $300 billion in liabilities has been seen as a symbol of the wider troubles in the property sector, which still impacts the Chinese economy. Hui, born in rural Henan province to a poor family, grew up with his grandmother before setting up Evergrande in 1996. He thanked the Chinese Communist party in 2018 for providing everything Evergrande and he had.