China Executes Ex‑Official Who Raked in $325 Million Bribery
A former city official in eastern China was executed after a court verdict in Changzhou that found him guilty of accepting more than 2.2 billion yuan (about $325 million) in bribes over his 30‑year career.
Yang Youlin, who served in various posts in Nanjing from 1993 to 2023, also faced convictions for embezzlement, abuse of power, and money laundering. He used his positions to help companies secure engineering contracts, land transfers and financing, in exchange for cash and valuables, state media reported.
The case comes amid President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti‑corruption campaign, which has targeted the military, banking and numerous other sectors. While death sentences for white‑collar crimes remain rare, they are imposed when corruption involves sums exceeding 1 billion yuan.
Previously, former finance chief Lai Xiaomin was executed in 2021 after taking 1.8 billion yuan in bribes, and Inner Mongolia official Li Jianping received the death penalty in 2024 for embezzling and accepting over 3 billion yuan.
In many similar cases, courts have issued jail terms or suspended death sentences, later commuted to life imprisonment. In Yang’s instance, although he provided assistance to authorities, the court judged his crimes as “extremely serious” and deemed his cooperation insufficient for a milder penalty.
Yang pleaded guilty and expressed remorse in his final statement, yet the sentence was deemed unavoidable by the Changzhou court.
