http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-02/former-chinese-official-convicted-of-banking-stolen-funds-1-.html
Li Huabo, a former government official in China and Singapore Permanent Resident, accused of a 94 million yuan ($15 million) fraud in China, was sentenced to 15 months in jail for receiving stolen money in his Singapore bank accounts.
Singapore subordinate courts Judge Siva Shanmugam doubled Li’s bail to S$160,000 ($129,292) after handing down his verdict today, pending a possible appeal.
Li had testified he was coerced into making a confession to police that he masterminded a scheme to embezzle the funds.
The former section director at Poyang county’s finance bureau in China’s southeastern Jiangxi province had denied three charges of receiving S$182,700 in stolen money in his Singapore accounts, claiming he was framed by former co-workers.
Li, 51, will appeal the verdict, his lawyer Subhas Anandan said. Anandan had argued for a shorter sentence, given the amount of money and his age.
For each charge, Li could have been jailed for as long as five years and fined an unspecified amount.
Li allegedly set up a shell company in 2006 and used bogus government seals and fake invoices to steal millions, Tan said at the trial.
Li was arrested in March 2011 after Singapore police acted on a tip-off from Li’s remittance agent and a request from Beijing via Interpol. Singapore and China don’t have an extradition treaty.
Li claimed his personal wealth including S$1.5 million used to obtain his Singapore permanent residency and a S$1.3 million three-bedroom apartment in the city-state was built through businesses on the sidelines and not by siphoning public funds.
Li’s hometown Poyang is one of China’s poorest counties and named after what was once the country’s largest freshwater lakes before drought and dams shrunk it from 4,000 square kilometers to 200.
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