A Chinese-born Canadian tycoon who disappeared from Hong Kong in 2017 was sentenced on Friday to 13 years in prison for a multibillion-dollar string of financial offences and his company was fined $8.1 billion, a court announced.
Xiao Jianhua was convicted of misusing billions of dollars of deposits from banks and insurers controlled by his Tomorrow Group and offering bribes to officials, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court said on its social media account. Xiao was fined 6.5 million yuan ($950,000) and his company was fined 55 billion yuan ($8.1 billion), the court said.
Xiao was last seen at a Hong Kong hotel in January 2017 and was believed to have been taken to the mainland by Chinese authorities.
Reports later said he was under probe by anti-graft authorities. The Canadian government said diplomats were blocked from attending his July 5 trial. Xiao was deemed to be a Chinese citizen, which meant he wasn’t entitled to see Canadian diplomats under a consular treaty between the two governments, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.
That meant Xiao entered the mainland using a Chinese travel document instead of his Canadian passport.