A Chinese tycoon whose investment conglomerate was once China's biggest stockholder was sentenced to eight years in prison Saturday after being found guilty of illegal banking and stock price manipulation.

Tang Wanxin, real owner of D'long financial empire which includes D'long International Strategic Investment Co., Ltd., Xinjiang-based D'long Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Youlian Management Research Center Co., Ltd., also was fined 800,000 yuan (about 100,000 U.S. dollars) for the two crimes, according to the first instance verdict from the Wuhan Intermediate People's court.

Six senior executives and three businesses of D'long also got prison terms and huge fines.

Executives Li Qiang and Yang Li were sentenced to five and a half years and three and a half years in prison and fined 300,000 yuan (about 37,500 U.S. dollars) and 250,000 yuan (about 31,250 U.S. dollars) respectively for illegal banking.

Wang Enkui and Dong Gongyuan got two years in prison and Hong Qiang and Zhang Long were sentenced to one year and nine months in prison for manipulating share prices.

Shanghai-based D'long International Strategic Investment Co., Ltd. and Xinjiang-based D'long Co.,Ltd. were each fined 5 billion yuan (about 625 million U.S. dollars) for share price manipulation. Shanghai Youlian Management Research Center Co., Ltd. was fined 300 million yuan (about 37.5 million U.S. dollars) for illegally taking huge deposits from the public.

The court found that Youlian amassed more than 43.7 billion yuan (about 5.6 billion U.S. dollars) in deposits from the public between 2001 and 2004 by illegally offering guarantees to its clients. It failed to repay its clients 16.7 billion yuan (about 2.09 billion U.S. dollars).

D'long ran into trouble in 2004 after creditors began demanding repayment amid reports it had pledged equity in listed companies as collateral for bank loans.

The convicts netted 9.86 billion yuan (about 1.23 billion U.S. dollars) from share price manipulation since March 1997, court sources said.

The court, in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, heard the case from January 19 to 20 this year.

The case, involving the largest sum of funds since New China was founded in 1949, implicates more than 2,500 organizations and 32,000 individuals in 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Source: Xinhua