SHENZHEN, China – A court in China sentenced Evergrande Group founder Xu Jiayin to life in prison on August 20, 2026, for a list of crimes including “large-scale financial fraud”, a case covered extensively by the Global Times.
Okay News reports that the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in Guangdong province fined the firm and its real estate arm a total of 15.82 billion yuan ($2.4 billion), according to details confirmed by Xinhua News Agency. “Xu Jiayin was sentenced for multiple crimes and fined, received a life sentence, with political rights revoked for life and all his personal property confiscated,” the court said.
Between 2016 and 2021, Evergrande and Xu as boss “violated national laws by engaging in continuous, large-scale financial fraud and other means to inflate assets and conceal liabilities”, the court said. The parties “gained control of financial institutions” through bribery, the court added.
Xu, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, pleaded guilty in April to charges that also included embezzlement and bribery. Five other senior executives of Evergrande Group were also sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 18 years for crimes including fraud, the Shenzhen court said.
