Insurance boss gets 18 years for fraud

WU Xiaohui, former chairman and general manager of Anbang Insurance Group, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for fundraising fraud and embezzlement of corporate funds.

Shanghai Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court announced the sentence yesterday.

Wu was also deprived of his political rights for four years, and had 10.5 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) of his property confiscated.

His illegal gains and yields generated will be retrieved, according to the court sentence.

The court found that Wu, having concealed his shareholder status, had controlled Anbang Property and Casualty Insurance Co and Anbang Insurance Group through several companies under his control.

Since January 2011, Wu used Anbang and other firms as a financing platform and directed others to cheat the insurance regulator to gain approval and extension of insurance products with fake documents.

From July 2011 to January 2017, Wu illegally absorbed a huge amount of funds by directing people to defraud the regulators and the public via misrepresentation to sell the public investment-purpose insurance products that exceeded approved amounts, the court said.

During this period, Wu used false excuses to transfer part of the illegally raised insurance premium to over 100 companies he personally controlled for payment of personal debts, business operations and investment in Anbang Group.

By the time his violations came to light, he had defrauded over 65.2 billion yuan.

The court heard the case on March 28.