Former Party chief of Sanya gets death for graft

Tong Daochi, a former securities watchdog official and Party chief of Sanya in Hainan Province, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Thursday for receiving bribes.

The Intermediate People's Court in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, found Tong was guilty for taking 274 million yuan (US$41 million) in bribes from 2004 to 2020 in exchange for conveniences in company listings, business operations, financing, borrowing, and job promotions.

The court also found him guilty of insider trading.

While working as the vice director of the China Securities Regulatory Commission's public offering supervision department from August 2006 to April 2007, Tong told his relatives, and others close to him, to buy 31.65 million yuan of stocks. The court said he made a profit of 3.38 million yuan from the deals.

He was sentenced to jail for five years and fined 4 million yuan for it, and all of his personal properties will be confiscated for the separate bribery conviction.

The court justified Tong's death sentence on the extremely large amount of bribes he took, the significant losses caused to the country and its people, and the particularly negative social impacts of his case.

It also said he was given a reprieve from the death penalty as well as a reduced sentence for insider trading because he had fully confessed to his crimes and turned in his illegal profits.

Tong said he would not appeal his sentence.