Shanghai property tycoon Zhou Zhengyi, one of China's richest
businessmen, was sentenced Tuesday to a jail term of three years
for stock market fraud and falsifying documents, sources with the
Supreme People's Court said.
According to the sources, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate
People's Court announced the verdict on Tuesday, about ten days
after the trial of the real estate mogul from May 19 to 20.
Zhou was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for
manipulating share prices and one year for falsifying registered
capital reports. His final sentence was a total of three years in
prison, the verdict said.
Shanghai-based Nongkai Development Group, a property firm
controlled by Zhou, was sentenced to pay a total fine of 40 million
yuan (US$4.82 million), including 33 million yuan (US$3.96 million)
for manipulating share prices and seven million yuan (US$840,000)
for falsifying registered capital reports.
The two other defendants involved in the same case were also
convicted, the sources said, but did not disclose any details.
According to the verdict, from June 1999 to May 2003, Zhou
Zengyi was found manipulating stock prices through illegally buying
and selling tradable shares of an engineering company in east
China's Xuzhou city, owing 95.93 percent of the corporate shares at
the peak time, which resulted in an unreasonable jump of402 percent
of the stock's price.
From October 1998 to April 2000, Zhou was also accused of
fabricating Nongkai's paid-up capital from the original 100 million
yuan (US$12 million) to 800 million yuan (US$96 million) with
falsified capital surplus.
Zhou, ranking 11th in 2002 on Forbes magazine's list of the 100
richest people in China, had an estimated personal fortune worth
US$320 million before his arrest last September.
Statistics show that in 2002, the Shanghai-based Nongkai
employed 4,000 workers and had a sales revenue of US$540
million.
The 42-old also headed the Hong Kong-listed Shanghai Land
Holdings and Shanghai Merchants Holdings and two Shanghai-listed
companies.
(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2004)