China courts official to death for $324 million bribes

A former Chinese municipal official has been sentenced to death for accepting bribes worth more than 2.2 billion yuan (approximately $324 million) over a thirty-year period. The Changzhou Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu province delivered the verdict on Monday, July 6, 2026, convicting Yang Youlin, a former senior official in Nanjing, on multiple charges including bribery, corruption, misappropriation of public funds, abuse of power, and money laundering.

The court stated that Yang, who once served as executive deputy director of the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone management committee, accepted illicit payments from 1993 to 2023. In exchange for bribes, he used his positions, which also included director of the Jiangning District Construction Bureau, to help individuals and companies secure engineering contracts, business opportunities, land allocations, and financial support. The court described the amount of bribes as "especially huge," with "especially serious circumstances and an especially egregious social impact."

In addition to the death sentence, the court stripped Yang of his political rights for life and ordered the confiscation of all his...