A court in eastern China sentenced a former municipal official to death for accepting more than 2.2 billion yuan ($325 million) in bribes over 30 years.

Yang Youlin, who held various positions in the Nanjing city municipal government between 1993 and 2023, was also found guilty of embezzlement, abuse of power and money laundering.

The amount of his illicit profits is among the highest of the corruption cases known in recent years in China.

The 69-year-old public representative used his positions to help third parties obtain engineering contracts, land transfers and financing in exchange for money and valuables, state media reported.

Yang was investigated within the framework of the anti-corruption campaign promoted by President Xi Jinping that has also affected, among other areas, the military ranks and the banking elite.

Yang, who spent much of his career in the economic and technological development of Nanjing, committed crimes “of an extremely serious nature” and “caused exceptionally large losses to the interests of the State and the people,” a court in the city of Changzhou declared on Monday.

Xi's tough anti-corruption campaign

Since coming to power, President Xi has launched various anti-corruption campaigns that, according to his critics, have also been used as a tool to purge political rivals.

However, death sentences for so-called “white collar” crimes remain rare, although they are handed down occasionally, usually in cases involving sums exceeding 1 billion yuan ($147 million).

For example, former finance chief Lai Xiaomin was executed in 2021 for accepting 1.8 billion yuan ($265 million) in bribes over a 10-year period.

Li Jianping, a former official in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, also received the death penalty in 2024 for embezzlement and accepting bribes worth more than 3 billion yuan ($441 million).

In many other cases, courts have imposed prison sentences or suspended death sentences, which are commuted to life imprisonment after a specified period.

Likewise, judges have reduced sentences in some cases in which those convicted provided information about other offenders.

In Yang's case, although he provided similar cooperation to the authorities, his crimes were so "serious" that this cooperation "was insufficient to justify a lighter sentence," the Changzhou court noted.

Yang pleaded guilty and “expressed remorse in his final statement,” according to state media.