Wang Caiping Sentenced To Death In China For $16 Million Investor Scam

BEIJING, April 6 (Reuters) - A 30-year-old Chinese woman was sentenced to death by a court in Wenzhou for "cheating" investors of 100.11 million yuan ($16 million) losing 94 million yuan in futures and gold trading, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

The death sentence for Wang Caiping - who must first serve two years in prison - came days after Beijing launched a pilot programme in Wenzhou to tame the informal private lending market to which the city's renowned entrepreneurs often turn.

Xinhua said Wang borrowed the money between January and October 2010 promising to buy equipment, invest in property and open credit guarantee firms, but instead used the cash to speculate in futures and gold trading along with her elder brother, Wang Guanglin, who is still at large.

After heavy losses, including 30 million yuan in September 2010 alone, Wang tried to negotiate with some of her creditors in November 2010, but they turned her over to police after the meeting broke up, Xinhua reported.

According to Xinhua, Wang said the 15 people had voluntarily given her money in return for handsome interest payments.

One of Wang's defense lawyers said the futures investment activities were legal and criminal charges against her were unfounded, Xinhua said.

But the intermediary court of Wenzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province, ruled that Wang had committed the "crime of fraud of financing" and sentenced to death for the huge sum of money involved, Xinhua added.

The Xinhua report did not say whether an appeal would be heard.

China's supreme court is reviewing another fund-raising case by a woman named Wu Ying, who was sentenced to death by a local court for "illegally raising" 770 million yuan in funds. .

In China, a sentence of jail time and death usually means the punishment will be reduced to life in prison. ($1 = 6.3153 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Zhou Xin and Nick Edwards; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Comments

[NoNameDude]

05:37 PM on 04/09/2012

well, actually she will not be executed immediately, but stay in prison for two years. In China that usually means her death penalty will be changed to life imprisonment, unless she does something wrong in the two years.

[Clarity22]

08:55 AM on 04/08/2012

That's about right. If alot more of this recourse happened you'd see how fast it goes down.

[efsacramento]

06:49 AM on 04/08/2012

The problem with this law, however much we might think some types of crimes deserve punishment by death, is the same for financial crimes as it already is for U,S death penalty cases. That is, there have been and would be innocent people wrongly executed. IMO it is not a deterrent and even if it did deter, it should not be used since there is no absolute guarantee of guilt, This is especially a concern as our government is working increasingly as a police state where greater kevels of wealth seem to be linked to nore legal protections and more favorable outcomes in the justice system. If people are too naiive to believe this, then they are being lazy citizens or have not had enough experiences or paid attention to others who have warned of problems. If people believe in the death penalty, then they shouldn't worry if a quality control program in the courts were initiated under which verdicts were enfrorced against secret innocent defendents. It would be like going undercover against the mafia where blowing your cover would get you killed before, during or after a trial (if acquitted).. Money drives all of this.

[lofttypeofaview]

11:08 PM on 04/07/2012

I meant to type "favor"!

[lofttypeofaview]

11:07 PM on 04/07/2012

I don't have the death penalty, I believe that King Louie and Marie Antoinette would've suffered a worse fate if the were incarcerated for life without parole, had to fund their incarceration with labor and had their funds benefit the peasants.

[duxguts]

10:14 PM on 04/07/2012

.........wouldn't be anyone left on Wall Street.

[tax evader]

09:48 PM on 04/07/2012

ahhh, Chinese justice.

[Johnny LaRue]

08:19 PM on 04/07/2012

Maybe Goldman Sachs can start up in China.

[Anne Mccormick]

05:51 PM on 04/07/2012

talk about vengeful creditors.

[rvhobo]

05:38 PM on 04/07/2012

Yes if USA had such laws one would see a retreat by the right wing in their death penalty advocacy, they surely would be flooding the death rows nation wide with their brethren and quite a few politicians with them!

[breakingpoint]

01:58 PM on 04/07/2012

the US needs to start doing this to people on Wall Street

[redcountyinabluestate]

11:53 AM on 04/07/2012

Too bad Mitt Romney isn't from China. They know how to handle his business plan.

[alpabets]

11:05 AM on 04/07/2012

a fair policy and one we should import for wall street scammers

[montanasian]

09:48 AM on 04/07/2012

maybe nbc can parce this segment together and make it that she just won the lottery or became the queen of england.

[KingGeorgetheTurd]

09:27 AM on 04/07/2012

If this law came to the US, the GOP would instantly be against the death penalty.