25 years for official with 20 houses
Print Edition
A FORMER housing official has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for bribery, corruption and embezzlement by a court in Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan Province.
Zhai Zhenfeng, former chief of Erqi District’s housing administration office in Zhengzhou, hit the headlines in 2012 when his daughter was reported owning 11 houses built under the government’s affordable housing program.
However, Zhai was already under investigation, having been sacked from his post and booted out of the Party in September 2011 for “abusing his powers to seek benefits for his relatives,” according to Xinhua news agency.
Zhengzhou Intermediate People’s Court said Zhai illegally owned 20 properties, 11 registered under his daughter’s name and nine under his son’s, China Central Television reported.
Before his downfall, the family had sold seven of the properties, CCTV said.
Its report didn’t say whether the court had identified the properties as affordable housing. How Zhai obtained the properties and how much he profited from selling some of them weren’t mentioned either.
The court said Zhai exploited his power for personal gain in the construction of affordable houses. It also said Zhai had conspired with Wang Bochang, board chairman of Henan Province Road and Bridge Construction Co, to siphon off 30 million yuan (US$4.83million) of public funds.
With Guo Sixi, manager of Yalong Real Estate Company, and Feng Songwei, accountant for Dehua Pedestrian Street Management Co, Zhai embezzled a combined 7 million yuan, the court said.
Zhai himself took public funds of nearly 120,000 yuan and bribes worth 70,000 yuan. To seek illegal gains, he gave other government officials bribes totalling 330,000 yuan, the court said, adding that investigators were trying to recover the money and properties.
Wang was sentenced to seven years, Feng to four and a half years and Guo to four years.
In September last year, Cai Bin, a former police official in Guangzhou, was sentenced to 11 and a half years for accepting bribes totaling 2.75 million yuan. Cai was dismissed from his post in October 2012 after bloggers highlighted his corruption, say he illegally had more than 20 houses. Cai was given the nickname “Uncle House.”
In the same month, Gong Aiai, a former Chinese banker mocked online as “Sister House,” was sentenced to three years for forging and trading official documents.
She was found to have a huge number of properties purchased with the aid of fake IDs.
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