A court in Changzhou has sentenced former Nanjing city official Yang Youlin, 69, to death for accepting more than 2.2 billion yuan, about $325 million, in bribes over three decades, in what authorities described as one of the largest graft cases prosecuted in China in recent years.
According to the Changzhou Intermediate People’s Court, Yang was convicted on four counts: bribery, embezzlement, abuse of power, and money laundering. Prosecutors said he exploited a series of leadership posts in Nanjing to help individuals and companies secure lucrative engineering contracts, land transfers, and financing approvals. In return, he received cash, property, and other valuables.
Court documents stated the bribes were accumulated between the early 1990s and 2024, spanning much of Yang’s career in municipal administration and urban development.
Yang was taken into custody last year as part of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted both “tigers” senior officials and “flies” lower-level bureaucrats since 2012.
The case was transferred to Changzhou for trial, a common practice in China for high-profile political cases to ensure judicial impartiality.
Despite Yang pleading guilty and cooperating with investigators, the court said the scale and duration of his crimes warranted the maximum penalty.
“The amount involved is extremely huge, the circumstances are extremely serious, and the social impact is extremely bad,” the court said in its verdict. “A severe punishment in accordance with the law must be imposed.”
Death sentences for economic crimes remain rare in China, but courts have handed them down in cases where the amount involved exceeds 1 billion yuan and is deemed to have caused major damage to public interests.
Legal experts note that while China abolished the death penalty for several non-violent crimes in 2011, it retains capital punishment for some corruption cases. In practice, many death sentences are commuted to life in prison after a two-year reprieve if the convict shows good behavior. It was not immediately clear if the court granted Yang a reprieve.
Yang’s conviction adds to a string of high-profile cases in Jiangsu province, where rapid urbanization and massive infrastructure spending have created opportunities for graft.
The court also ordered the confiscation of all personal assets linked to Yang’s crimes and the recovery of illicit gains to be turned over to the state treasury.
Chinese state media framed the ruling as further evidence of the Communist Party’s “zero tolerance” approach to corruption.
The case will likely be cited by authorities as a warning to officials overseeing land deals and public projects, sectors that have historically been prone to abuse.
Yang has 10 days to appeal the verdict.
