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China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes
- mothballed 4mo agoMain difference between death penalty in US and China, is in US police officers easily sentence subjects to death and the courts do it with great difficulty. In China the inverse. For instance, high level executive Bryan Malinowski was executed by the ATF and barely anyone noticed, but if the courts had sentenced him in such way, there would be great outrage.
- arjie 4mo agoInteresting story. This guy was actually airport director at the airport in Little Rock, AR. He used to buy and sell a bunch of guns and was an avid collector. He was killed when ATF agents raided his home and he responded with gunfire. The controversy seems to circle around the fact that: * the ATF decided not to raid his home when he was out of town but early in the morning when he was at home * the ATF gave him 28 seconds to comply with their announcement after which they battered the door down Given the fact that the agents weren't wearing body cameras, the guy had a normal day job that he'd go to, and that 28 seconds is certainly too short to dispose of firearms it does seem a lot like execution served by way of search warrant. Certainly, I wouldn't be able to let anyone in 28 s after waking up to pounding on my door.
- lux-lux-lux 4mo ago> executed He was shot after opening fire, unprovoked, on federal agents performing a search of his home under a lawfully obtained warrant.
- mothballed 4mo agoWillingly and with aforethought engineering a situation that is practically guaranteed provoke an asleep person with ~no notice in the early morning to "unprovoked" defend themselves and wife against unknown people breaking into their home in order to lawfully "defend" one's self is execution in my book. I can understand if there's some imminent threat but there was none. He was going to wake up, and report to a secure airport full of cops and federal agents. But they couldn't resist engineering a situation that ended up with him dead, doing what anyone would do to protect their wife when given ~zero time to distinguish threats entering their home at night. Now you can argue maybe it wasn't an execution, and only their acts were indistinguishable from what those doing an execution would do.
- lux-lux-lux 4mo agoThey gave notice, and supplying guns to criminals sounds like an immanent threat to me. I don’t think you’re being rational, here.
- OkayPhysicist 3mo agoIf you violently bust into someone's home in the United States, you're liable to, and absolutely deserve to, get shot. I do not care if you have a badge. If you want to execute a lawful search warrant, the best time to do it is when nobodies home. The second best time is during the day, when you can clearly state your legal mandate to be there, and allow the homeowner to comply. The ATF in this instance (and frankly most instances) chose the most violent option available to them, because good people don't join the ATF. Violent thugs who get off on shooting dogs join the ATF. And when they get tired of shooting dogs, they decide to manufacture a scenario where they get to kill a more dangerous game.
- pornel 4mo ago[flagged]
- SkinTaco 4mo agoRent free
- MaxHoppersGhost 4mo agoWonder who this guy pissed off in the CCP.
- Exoristos 4mo agoIt starts with an "X" and ends with an "i."
- onion2k 4mo agoI don't really understand the mentality of people who do this sort of criminal activity. If he'd stopped after, say, $5m and just retired he'd probably have managed to get away with it. Continuing to such a ridiculous degree through sheer greed led him to a death sentence. That's just plain stupid.
- mothballed 4mo agoOnce you start high-profile criminal activity you have to keep doing it to pay off the right people, as soon as you retire you're fucked.
- csours 4mo agoThis is load bearing guanxi
- starik36 4mo agoThink of Breaking Bad. His wife literally asked him this same question. When is it enough? It's a mentality where you can't stop.
- iamacyborg 4mo agoBreaking Bad is a work of fiction.
- toephu2 4mo agoYup, it's called greed. It's a part of human nature. That's one reason societies create laws and penalties: to discourage harmful behavior and keep that instinct in check.
- lonely_wanderer 4mo agoIn for a penny, in for a pound. Unless you are extremely crafty, you don’t get to retire from this sort of criminality. Everyone who enabled you wants more and you have a semi-permanent metaphorical sword hanging over your head.
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- throwaw12 4mo ago[flagged]
- mc32 4mo agoIf we executed people in Congress who make money in a way that is illicit for the general population we’d be left with like a handful or two left in the congress. They all have PACs and or engage in insider trading.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- TrackerFF 4mo agoI sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west. But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?
- mittensc 4mo agoYou can ask the same about inner circle of current US leadership It will have the same answer, no who would be able to prosecute them and how? who would even investigate them
- MattDamonSpace 4mo agoYeah but that’s bad right
- mittensc 4mo agoof course
- glenstein 4mo agoThe Achilles heel of all whataboutism is assuming someone can't consistently criticize the new thing in addition to the original thing.
- mittensc 4mo agoIt's not whataboutism if you point out question was naive. (answer is the same everywhere and has always been the same) Inner circle leadership won't be prosecuted anywhere as long as their group holds some power. So, then, question is, how can this be improved?, can it be improved?
- matthewdgreen 4mo ago
- 1970-01-01 4mo agoI wonder if he could have lived if it was just one $325M bribe and not 30 years of bribery.
- vrganj 4mo ago[flagged]
- felooboolooomba 4mo agoThat's a bit harsh. It's not like he took a $400 million jet.
- Jcampuzano2 4mo agoIf we actually punished corrupt officials and we had some kind of truth serum that forced people to admit yes/no as to whether they are corrupt, I would not be surprised if the majority of officials in the federal government would be culled. Its practically a breeding ground for corruption.
- wat10000 4mo agoWhat do you count as "officials"? I doubt some random manager at the FAA or CFPB took bribes. The rank and file tend to take this stuff seriously. The high-level appointees? Yeah, I'd believe it if most of them had to go. And good riddance to them if they did.
- varispeed 4mo agoIt's a shame we relabelled corruption as lobbying. The damage it has done is untold. One thing that China does should be adopted in the West.
- hbd-investor 4mo agotrump and biden both pardoned tons of white collar criminals
- jibal 4mo agoThe first is true, the second is a lie. The motto of Trump's pardon office is "No MAGA left behind."
- rcbdev 4mo agoThis is a lie. Joseph Biden pardoned Francis W. Biden, James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, John T. Owens and Valerie Biden Owens among many, many other dubious choices. The U.S.A. is the embodiment of crony capitalism. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-joseph-biden-2021-2025 https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-jos...
- speff 3mo agoI'd imagine because of the talk from the then-incoming administration talking about how he'll go after their families unless his personal ongoing charges were dropped [0]. I would do the exact same thing if a vindictive POS was about to gain power. [0]: "Trump threatens to prosecute Bidens if he’s re-elected unless he gets immunity" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/30/trump-second-term-abortion-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/30/trump-second...
- jibal 4mo agoI'm not the liar here -- none of those family pardons are for "white collar crimes", they were to protect them from retribution by Trump. Again, Trump pardons people for a fee, and the motto of his pardons office is "no MAGA left behind". The fraud that he has pardoned amounts to about $2 billion to date.
- feverzsj 4mo agoA relatively low level official can't take this much bribes. More like a scapegoat.
- throwaway27448 4mo agoOver thirty years? I am surprised he didn't take more.
- mothballed 4mo agoNah he took the bribes and probably paid 90% upward/laterally. Being the guy that actually takes the bribe is likely part of how he got promoted to where he is, in a way, like a soldier who gets promoted for being a calculated risk taker.
- gitpusher 4mo agoIt's not outside the realm of possibility for the positions he occupied. But yes, corruption is selectively cracked down upon in China
- hangonhn 4mo agoHang on. City level officials play an incredibly important role in China. While Nanjing is not in the same tier as Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen, it is in the tier just below them. It is the provincial capital of one of China's most important provinces -- GDP similar to Texas. Many large Chinese companies are often tied to specific cities -- they get grants and subsidies via the city they are located in. This guy did it over 30 years so it is feasible. Scapegoat isn't the right term but I think it is very possible he is being executed to essentially send a message. I think your bigger point that there are way more corrupt officials than just this guy involved seems very plausible.
- jjcm 4mo agoJust to add more context to this - he accepted ~$10 million a year while managing a city that has a population larger than New York City. The GDP of the city was 278.9 billion USD in 2025.
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- jqpabc123 4mo agoCorruption is the most significant threat China has left now that Western capitalism has surrendered. Tariffs on all things Chinese is pretty much an open admission that the West can't compete.
- rirze 4mo agoWhat happens to the money in these cases? I could imagine the official taking solace knowing the money he amassed over the years would eventually go his family.
- dylan604 4mo agoUntil his family receives the bill for the bullet of $325M
- lifeisgood99 4mo agoExfiltrated to Vancouver or London where the wife and kids live most likely.
- IAmBroom 3mo agoChina isn't afraid to assassinate them there. They'll have to live their lives behind bulletproof glass, mistrusting servants and visitors. I mean, live that way on $325 million. But yeah.
- dfee 4mo agothe reason i dislike seeing these articles on HN is that: 1. strong defensive positions float to the top... which could be astroturfing. 2. the merits of the concept aren't discussed; the convo falls back to whataboutism. maybe it's all fair, but on a site where everyone's ~anonymous, it's hard to take the discussion at face value.
- khazhoux 4mo agoMost people here are anonymous, for all the discussions. Either trust that your fellow HNers are legitimate, or… ?
- tyre 4mo agoThe topic comment at the time I’m writing this is asking fair questions, in my opinion. - Many people feel the death penalty is wrong in every case. - Some have a general familiarity with high-level politics of elites and wonder about selective enforcement. These don’t feel like they’re in bad faith. The merits are difficult to know from the outside, so there will always be speculation based on someone’s lived experience and perceptions. Better to have those aired with a chance to respond, in my opinion. Especially for China, since it is a global power that operates differently from others. In my own country (United States), for example, we have brazenly open corruption with no consequences.
- dfee 4mo agofirst, look beyond the top comment. then, re-read my comment: > the merits of the concept aren't discussed; the convo falls back to whataboutism. …juxtaposed to your conclusion: > In my own country (United States), for example, we have brazenly open corruption with no consequences. fwiw, i too feel that the death penalty is wrong. but, that's answering an off topic survey question. i should also note that you've gotten pushback on your comment above declaring that "Xi has shown repeatedly that he’s serious about corruption". my issue is that there's a narrative that forms based on up/downvotes and thus these political threads are gamed. kinda like how my concerns about legitimacy are being downvoted – that's to be expected.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- engineer_22 4mo agoWe should do this in USA
- RIMR 4mo agoYou'd have to industrialize the capital punishment system to handle the demand.
- groby_b 4mo agoGood for China. Society cannot work with too many corrupt civil servants. Yes, "autocrats", "civil liberties", and yet - the guy slurped up $325M to put his finger on the scale, not to change the model of governance. I wish we in the west took corruption more seriously, but I suppose we're more interested in cage fights on the lawn these days.
- carabiner 4mo agoThe US is very good if you're very rich. It's bad for everyone else. China appears to be somewhat bad or critical of the superrich, which is why they want to come to the US, but good if you're middle class or poor.
- Danox 4mo agoThe antifreeze toothpaste people didn’t get away with it, nor did the 3000 pigs in the river people, and nor did that one group of executives who were in charge of a fertilizer/chemical plant that was one of the largest industrial catastrophes in the world let alone China. If you get caught in China, Vietnam, or Singapore the penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance. You can’t buy your way out if you do something so spectacular that you cause the government to lose face. You might as well go jump off a building or a bridge cause you’re done for. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/china-executes-ex-head-food-drug-agency-flna1c9470728 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/china-executes-ex... https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/uvm7oy/in_2008_a_chinese_dairy_company_intentionally/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/uvm7oy/i...
- b112 4mo agoYou're only hearing about the ones caught and punished. You have no proof of "Zero tolerance", or of what percentage of people are caught.
- malfist 4mo ago"Zero tolerance" and "we catch every criminal" are two unrelated ideas.
- elevation 4mo agoYes -- and even a spectacular punishment does not establish the guilt of the recipient. Some may be innocent (framed) or only partially guilty (scapegoat.) Other may have been known to be guilty all along and has only recently fallen out of favor.
- jimmydoe 4mo ago[dead]
- maerF0x0 4mo agoOne of the problems with absolute authoritarian regimes is that the friends of those in power are defined as "not criminals", and vice versa for enemies. It's part of the reason I'm against presidential pardon. (Except for when it's retrospective on laws that have changed, maybe?)
- pibaker 4mo agoAnyone who think this demonstrates the CCP's epicbacon commitment to anti corruption needs to ask themselves how did this man take so much bribe over 30 years and is only sentenced now. Is he dumb? Surely he is smart enough to know he committed a capital crime and yet he kept doing it. Perhaps he only kept doing it because he believed he could somehow get away with it? Perhaps he saw others pull off the same stunt? Or perhaps he had the political capital to keep himself out of trouble and is now facing justice because he rubbed someone higher up the wrong way? Is the prosecution dumb? 300 million is no small money are they really so incompetent that over the course of 30 years they could not find anything wrong with this guy? Perhaps they had a reason to keep him around? Perhaps he had them in his pocket? Perhaps he had the connection to fuck up anyone who dares investigating him? Perhaps they never meant to care about corruption anyway and only went after him because someone somewhere issued an order and they are just charging him for corruption because the true reason is less convenient? China has invested a lot in whitewashing its public image these days. Every young left leaning westerner is salivating at the idea of a Chinese century because they somehow convinced themselves that the Chinese has the solution to everything that went wrong in the west. It's sad to see it spreading even to this website.
- trencedamp 4mo agoEpicbacon? Is that some new slang or a typo
- keane 4mo agogenerally an allusion to the sophomoric takes of enthusiastic ignorance found on places like Reddit (where The Oatmeal and Cards Against Humanity were popular)
- kdamica 4mo agoDoesn't hold a candle to the scale of Heshen's crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heshen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heshen
- qnleigh 4mo ago> he was described as the most corrupt official in Chinese history... Heshen is remembered as one of the richest men in history... His total property was... reputed to be equivalent to the imperial revenue of the Qing government for 12 years. Damn
- dzonga 4mo agodoes punishing corruption with a death sentence - look excessive ? Yes! is it prone to abuse by those who yield power - Yes! however - the alternative - where corruption goes unchecked is even worse!! if you come from a poor country e.g in Africa - you would've experienced the effects of corruption. American are now experiencing it now - & the country is already worse off. though before corruption in American was used as an incentive mechanism - now it's just pure grift. so yeah sentencing one or two people to death explicitly is the humane outcome vs sentencing thousands to death implicitly.
- trencedamp 4mo agoDeath sentence is excessive. But many people here will be comparing it to the USA where the current punishment for corruption is nothing. Literally nothing. You just get away with it in plain sight We don't need death sentence, we just need, like, any regular sentence
- fritzo 4mo agoThe alternative is 4 years of house arrest, just until the next administration can issue a pardon. There is no sentence between 4 years and capital punishment.
- wrqvrwvq 4mo agoIn your opinion, which specific criminal acts have American executives committed in the last 20 years? Holmes et co have been charged and incarcerated, SBF is also sitting in prison, other executives at smaller companies have also been prosecuted and faced imprisonment. I think there is a lot of fraud in various industries, but some of it is prosecuted, and some of it is legal enough that there is only a fine to pay. There is some accountability, and as much as i can criticize what corps do, i don't think of them as "legally responsible" for every misuse of their tools. Today it seems that if someone cuts their own leg off with a power saw it is a lawsuit against the tool company.
- trencedamp 4mo agoJust a few from the executive branch: Insider trading - Using knowledge of impending policy decisions and military operations to massively profit from the stock market. Further than this, one could argue that those policy decisions were made, or at least timed, in order to deliberately short stocks in order to reap profit. The timing of a lot of the Iran war announcements followed very suspect patterns. Using the highest office in the land to promote personal businesses. Awarding military contracts to companies linked with family members of the administration over other more suitable options. We'll likely never see any accountability for the literal billions being illicitly gained by the current administration after they've left office.
- mandeepj 4mo agoWill it happen here to the most corrupt a-hole? I don't think so. He'd chant - they hate me, or i'm part of a witch hunt, or 'i'm politically prosecuted.
- riazrizvi 4mo agoFascinating development in Chinese politics.
- niemandhier 4mo agoThere is the concept of sending doubles to stand in for punishment in china. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_zui https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_zui
- ninglor 4mo ago[dead]
- dyauspitr 4mo agoI wish India did something like this. A crackdown on corruption and enforcement of existing laws would fix 90% of India’s problems. Obviously I don’t think folks should get the death penalty but something harsh like long jail sentences and tearing down of whatever kingdoms they have built.
- therobots927 4mo agoI wish we did this here in the US. Here it’s the opposite - white collar criminals get “club fed” treatment - good food, comfortable room, tennis courts, etc. And that’s if they’re ever charged at all, which is rare.
- myko 4mo agoI'm generally against the death penalty but this kind of malfeasance truly deserves it. Sad to see similar corruption at the top levels of the US.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- moniosi 4mo agoI mean, many people in many states of the US are clearly fine with the death penalty dispensed for violent criminals. I think that white collar crimes of this nature are way worse than an isolated case of violence since it creates lots of indirect systemic misery & suffering for the people & taxpayers that need those resources (that by the way is also the perfect recipe for violent crimes).
- amai 4mo agoChina doesn't sentence official to death for genocide against Uyghurs
- penguin_booze 4mo agoToo bad China doesn't have a president fit for pardoning thugs.
- bwv848 4mo ago[dead]
- jeffrallen 4mo agoOoh, now do USA.
- mempko 4mo agoSomeone like Trump probably couldn't even be a CCP party member. I've heard it's a relatively meritocratic organization, at least compared to pur political system. Though maybe someone from China can correct me.
- greatgib 4mo agoI would like such justice to be applied to a few European and French officials... Democracy could be a lot different if corruption and selling his votes was not a career goal for our officials.
- OhNoNotAgain_99 4mo ago[dead]
- twothreeone 4mo agoDoes Xi Jinping (or any of his Politburo colleagues) publish their income and/or tax records? Otherwise, this "we are so anti-corruption" stance is basically just political theater as the Courts themselves are CCP-bound.
- torginus 4mo agoHow does one steal $300m? If someone is supposed to be on a clerk's salary, even if generous, I would think their explicable net worth should not go beyond a couple million. Being a hundred times richer than that means you have to keep a low profile, in which case being that rich isn't worth the risk.
- green_wheel 4mo agoWe need more of that here
- sorosnet 4mo ago[dead]
- purpleidea 4mo agoSerious countries don't still use the death penalty. It's barbaric. Even if the crimes are barbaric.
- jasonjei 4mo agoJk
- fsuts 4mo agoHopefully China will advance to a stage where they ban the death penalty like in many other countries.
- ebbi 4mo ago> advance Like those 'advanced' countries that don't have death penalties but are silent - or arming/funding - a genocide? I guess some deaths are ok.
- senderista 4mo agoAutocracies tolerate corruption because if everyone is corrupt, anyone can be "legitimately" prosecuted for corruption. (At least I think that's how it works in Russia, but I don't know much about China.)
- ColdStream 4mo agoThat makes sense. Give those under the leader enough rope to hang themselves but only when needed.
- TacticalCoder 4mo agoA state should never have the power to kill people --even though I think some just deserve death (like those raping then killing a child)-- because the state one day shall abuse that power to get rid of those who they don't like. But I gotta say something: if the EU or the US were to kill politicians taking in bribes, there wouldn't be many politicians left.
- jnaina 4mo ago[dead]
- bigglywiggler 4mo agoSo many comments here by western people clinging to the only thing that they have left. The idea that somewhere in the world there is 'injustice' and a 'lack of freedom' and 'dictatorship' makes their absolute dystopian hellscape seem somewhat barely tolerable in their addled minds because they can at least imagine that elsewhere there is some big bad dictator and therefore they are comparatively free. No matter that they are poor and getting poorer or that their governments and companies are all sold out to billionaires and wrecked by private equity. No matter that their freedom begins and ends at consumerism and the vague idea that the police won't arrest them for posting something online. Apparently freedom to have a strong government that actually funds things for the public and doesn't suck billionaire cocks is not as important as having the opportunity to get into debt and spaff shite on the internet. If these people actually went to China and saw it with their own eyes then they would realise that they have been lied to. It's extremely sad to see.
- funkychicken 4mo agoPretty sure most rational western people (on here at least) are the first to acknowledge all the bad things going on in their countries… and most of the comments I’ve read in this thread seem rather supportive of corruption crackdowns? Idk what prompted this rant tbh.
- yanhangyhy 4mo agoWhile Xi Jinping is heavily criticized in private within China, he truly attaches great importance to punishing corruption. The fundamental reason is that as China underwent reform and opening up, it abandoned the Maoist emphasis on equality for the people. As a result, interest groups have continuously expanded and begun to severely impact economic development. In the past, it was still possible to encourage officials to serve the people through rationality and grand socialist ideals. Now, with the fading of the former, severe punishment must be used to correct the course. Additionally, there are two noteworthy aspects regarding the unique characteristics of Chinese law: (1) The characteristic of "politics over law" in China has gained increasing approval online. Previously, many people admired and envied Western judicial independence, but more and more people are realizing the drawbacks of this system. (2) China has always been very cautious regarding the execution of the death penalty. Even during the feudal dynasties, official executions remained rare and typically required imperial review. In essence, China still operates under a model of governance by Confucian elites.
- nameconflicts 4mo ago赵瑞龙：哪来那么多腐败分子啊，说白了不就是你们内斗吗？
- silexia 4mo agoKeep in mind, the official may have done nothing wrong but not kissed the wrong Communist behind so he got framed.
- RandyOrion 4mo agoOther details for the official (Yang Youlin) in this news. --- Whistleblower Yang Hai already reported Yang Youlin for his economic misconduct in July 2008. The whistleblower was detained because of the report at Nov 21st, 2008. --- People's comment on this matter around March, 2009: 哇塞！终于有人敢动杨友林啦，杨海好样的。杨友林此人早该除无奈碍于他的势力。除掉杨友林大快人心。Wow! Finally, someone dares to take action against Yang Youlin. Good job, Yang Hai. That guy should have been dealt with long ago, but we were stuck with his influence. Getting rid of him is incredibly satisfying. 不杀此贪官，难平民愤。If you don't execute this corrupt official, you won't appease the public's anger. 江宁有一个传说，谁也动不了杨永林！There's a legend in Jiangning: nobody can touch Yang Youlin! 他的保护伞是谁？Who is protecting him? 希望引起中央的重视！I hope this gets the attention of the central government! 现在社会怎么啦？好多天了根本没人关注这件事？是上层没有看到？还是视而不见？还是怕牵连自己？What's going on with society lately? It's been days and no one is paying attention to this! Did the higher-ups miss it? Are they turning a blind eye? Or are they just afraid of getting dragged into it? --- Since the report, there were several pieces of news about "the investigation about Yang Youlin is ongoing", but no real progress until 2023.
- Handsome2734 4mo agoWhy is this on Hacker News? I thought the site is for tech posts, as named 'Hacker'
- crowd51 4mo agoChina being a communist country, I'm sure they want to show the people the harsh consequences for corruption. In North Korea, you get a death sentence for even something a lot smaller.
- black_13 4mo ago[dead]
- whazor 4mo ago[dead]
- trolleski 4mo agoIn the West, $325M in bribes is called Monday!
- mikewarot 4mo agoI feel like crimes over a certain threshold should include accessories in the punishment, like the Death Penalty here in Indiana does. It certainly helps motivate them to testify in court. Strong minority opinion: If someone steals more than the average total lifetime earnings of 10 people, I think the death penalty should apply. That's about 25 million USD
- tempodox 3mo agoI wonder how often Trump would have to die for his acts of high treason and making the USG lose face over and over again.
- fuckinpuppers 3mo agoIn the US that’s republican representative behavior! With a pardon to boot