The founder of China's Evergrande group, a liquidated property developer, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday by a Chinese court, which ordered all his personal property confiscated.

Hui Ka Yan pleaded guilty in April to several charges, including fraud, corporate bribery, and illegally taking public deposits.

Evergrande defaulted in 2021 on most of its $300 billion (roughly EUR255 billion) in liabilities and billions of dollars in wealth management product payments.

Hui's former companies fined a total of $2.3 billion

Hui also had his "political rights revoked for life and all his personal property confiscated," according to the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court.

The court also found he "violated national laws by engaging in continuous, large-scale financial fraud and other means to inflate assets and conceal liabilities," while also using bribery to gain control of financial institutions.

In addition to Hui's sentence, the court fined Evergrande 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion; €1.12 billion) and its main subsidiary, Hengda Real Estate, 7 billion yuan, and imposed fines and prison terms of six to 18 years on five other senior executives.

Evergrande's actions "disrupted the socialist market economic order"

Founded in the 1990s, Evergrande became one of China's premier property developers before collapsing under mounting debt following a 2020 crackdown on excessive borrowing.

Investigators in Hong Kong and mainland China found Evergrande inflated its revenue by roughly $80 billion in 2019 and 2020, including by booking property sales before completion and delivery.

Evergrande's downfall, which led to Hui's detention, a 2024 liquidation order, and a 2025 delisting, became emblematic of China's broader crisis in the property sector.

Hui and Evergrande's actions "seriously disrupted the socialist market economic order... and undermined the integrity of official conduct by state personnel", the court said.

"The circumstances were particularly egregious, causing particularly serious economic losses and causing particularly serious social harm," it added.

Edited by: Zac Crellin 

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