Manager Sentenced to Death for EmbezzlingA former general manager of the Xi'an Electro-mechanical Devices, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, was sentenced to death by a local court at the first trial on May 25 for embezzling company funds.In January, 1997, Zhou Changqing was scheduled to attend a conference in Shenzhen of south China's Guangdong Province, but instead went to Macao to gamble. After he lost all of his own cash, he dipped into the 328,000 yuan (40,000 U.S. dollars) he was carrying from his company and lost all of that, too. Later, Zhou illegally withdrew 39,829,000 yuan (4,799 U.S. dollars) from local branches of his company to gamble again. In August that year, Zhou collaborated with another defendant, Liu Xiaorong, to flee overseas. The pair got two cheques worth 11 million yuan (1.3 million U.S. dollars) under his company's name from a bank. Liu was nabbed by police in Guangzhou when he was checking out at the customs in December 1997, and Zhou was apprehended in Ecuador in May 1999. During his post as general manager, Zhou embezzled 48,437,000 yuan (5,836,000 U.S. dollars) worth of company money, and misappropriated 2,720,000 yuan (328,000 U.S. dollars) of public funds. Zhou was given the death penalty, his political rights were deprived for life, and his personal property, valued at 50,000 yuan (6,000 U.S. dollars), was confiscated. Liu received a life sentence, his political rights were deprived for life and his personal property of 10,000 yuan was confiscated. |
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