Retired chair of Chinese state-owned Everbright Group indicted on bribery charges

Audio By Carbonatix

BEIJING (AP) — A former chairman of the China Everbright Group and ex-central bank executive has been indicted on suspicion of embezzlement and bribery, part of a wider wave of prosecutions of senior officials accused of financial crimes.

Tang Shuangning, who also had held senior posts at the People's Bank of China and the China Banging Regulatory Commission, was indicted by a court in Tangshan, about 100 miles (160 kms) east of Beijing, according to a statement issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Friday.

Tang, 69, was arrested in January on suspicion of embezzlement and bribery.

Prosecutors suspect Tang of taking advantage of his position at the state-owned bank in “seeking convenience for others” in jobs and loans in exchange for illegal payments that were “particularly huge,” the statement said.

Tang retired in 2017. He was expelled from the ruling Communist Party in January. His successor at Everbright, Li Xiaopeng, was also suspected of graft, expelled from the party and removed from public office.

They are among many officials caught up in President Xi Jinping’s decade-long anti-corruption campaign, which critics say also is designed to remove his political rivals.

Liu Liange, former chairman of the Bank of China, was indicted in February on charges similar to those Tang is facing.

Others senior bankers targeted for alleged corruption include a former Chinese central bank senior official, Sun Guofeng, who was sentenced to over 16 years in prison for accepting bribes.

Sun Deshun, former president of state-owned China CITIC Bank, was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting more than $130 million in bribes during his career. Another finance executive, Zhang Hongli, a former senior executive of the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s biggest bank, has been investigated for graft.

The former chairman of the state-owned Bank of Beijing, Yan Bingzhu, also is under investigation for corruption.