A court in China has sentenced a former senior official to death for accepting more than 2.2 billion yuan (about $325 million) in bribes over three decades, one of the largest corruption cases in the country in recent years. Yang Youlin was found guilty by the Changzhou Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu province on Tuesday of bribery, embezzlement, abuse of power and money laundering, and was also stripped of political rights and had all personal assets confiscated.
The court found that Yang leveraged various positions held in Nanjing between 1993 and 2023, including as executive deputy director of the city's economic and technological development zone, to help others secure construction contracts, land transfers and financing in exchange for payments. He pleaded guilty and expressed remorse at a public hearing earlier this year.
The case is part of President Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted officials at all levels of government. The scale of the bribes places the verdict among the most significant handed down in China in recent years.