The former chief of the mainland's fourth-largest airport has gone on trial in Shenzhen, accused of defrauding two banks out of millions of yuan by falsifying loan application documents.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court began hearing the case against Cui Shaoxian, the former general manager and party secretary of Shenzhen Airport, on Tuesday.
Procurators allege Cui, 43, endorsed false airport contracts for two companies - Shenzhen's Northwest YAO Information Technology Co and Minxin Industry Co - as part of the firms' applications for 255 million yuan in loans from the Industrial Bank's Guangzhou branch and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank's Liuhua branch, according to the Southern Metropolis News. The loans were approved but the two companies did not repay the money.
Zhang Yuming, the former president of Northwest YAO and Minxin, has also been implicated in the alleged conspiracy.
Cui tried to cover the loans by paying about 2.2 million yuan of his own money to the banks, but was arrested in January last year after running out of funds. He told the court he made the payments because Zhang threatened to expose his role in the fraud.
Cui said the banks should be responsible for the bad loans because 80 per cent of the supporting material Zhang provided for the loan applications was false. He said the money would never have been approved if they had processed the application in a normal manner.
