He Accepted $325M in Bribes. His Sentence: Death

A former Nanjing power broker just received one of China's harshest penalties for graft: death. A court in Changzhou on Monday sentenced 69-year-old Yang Youlin to execution after finding he accepted more than 2.2 billion yuan (about $325 million) in bribes over three decades, while also committing embezzlement, abuse of power, and money laundering, according to state media. Prosecutors said Yang, who worked primarily in economic and technological development in Nanjing, used a succession of government posts from 1993 to 2023 to steer engineering contracts, land deals, and secure financing in exchange for cash and valuables, per the BBC.

The court called his crimes "extremely serious" and said they caused "exceptionally heavy losses" to the state and public. Yang reportedly cooperated with investigators and confessed, but judges ruled his help did not justify leniency. Yang, who will also have his personal property seized, expressed remorse in a final court statement, per the AP. The case is among the largest in President Xi Jinping's long-running anti-corruption campaign, which has reached into the military and financial system and has been criticized by some observers as a way to sideline political rivals. Death sentences for economic crimes are uncommon but not unheard of in China: former finance executive Lai Xiaomin was executed in 2021 and ex-Inner Mongolia official Li Jianping in 2024, both in major corruption cases.