Subscribe RSSBEIJING — A elaborate-school dropout who built the Chinese home appliance chain Gome into a multibillion-dollar empire was sentenced to 14 years in quod on Tuesday after being convicted of insider trading, bribery and other crimes, government prosecutors reported.
The conviction of the former chairman, Huang Guangyu, was among the most suggestive in a string of recent business-related corruption trials that have brought down top officials in China ’s oil and nuclear power industries and felled other executives in the airline, beverage, cellphone and securities businesses, among others.
Prime Churchman Wen Jiabao has demanded a crackdown on corruption, saying bluntly in March that it threatened the Communist Party’s continued grip on power.
Although prosecutions have increased, many analysts say investigations remain spotty, and their targets are often chosen for political reasons.
Mr. Huang’s sentencing officially closed a spectacular take-and-fall saga that had led the Chinese press in 2008 to crown him the nation’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $6.3 billion. Forbes armoury’s list of the wealthy placed his assets at a more modest $2.7 billion .
