A Shanghai court announced on Friday that it had sentenced Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese-Canadian tycoon who went missing in a Hong Kong hotel in 2017, to 13 years in prison for financial crimes.
It was Xiao who arrested one of the richest people in China, whose fortune is estimated at six billion dollars.
The No. 1 Court in Shanghai, where he was tried, stated that Xiao Ding was specifically charged with “embezzlement of public funds” and “illegal use of funds.”
His disappearance in 2017 shocked Hong Kong.
He is known to have been close to high-ranking Chinese communist leaders and was reportedly kidnapped by Beijing agents.
Since then, little information has been leaked about the case, and the Chinese authorities have remained silent on the matter.
The investigation into Xiao Jianhua appears to be part of a broad anti-corruption campaign launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2012.
Xiao’s alleged abduction in Hong Kong came at a time when Mainland Chinese agents were not allowed to move around the semi-autonomous city.
At the time, some feared that the city’s residents would be forcibly relocated to neighboring mainland China, where the judiciary is largely under the control of the ruling Communist Party.
These fears were one of the driving forces behind the pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019.
