Chinese billionaire developer who sexually abused children gets maximum five-year jail term

A 49-year woman, who brought two girls to convicted paedophile Wang Zhenhua, was given a four-year jail sentence

News comes within 24 hours of the conviction of former top insurance regulator for corruption

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Wang Zhenhua, former chairman Future Land Development, seen here at the company’s annual results briefing in 2017. Photo: Edward Wong

Published: 6:16pm, 17 Jun 2020Updated: 7:25pm, 17 Jun 2020

Chinese property tycoon Wang Zhenhua, whom officials accused of taking children as his playthings, was sentenced to five years in prison by a local court after his conviction for child sexual abuse.

The verdict, handed down by Shanghai Putuo District Court on Wednesday afternoon, ended nearly a year of saga surrounding the billionaire paedophile and his group Future Land Development, one of the fastest growing home builders he established less than three decades ago.

The scandal adds to a string of convictions involving Chinese corporate tycoons in the past decade for various crimes, including executives Anbang Insurance and Hanlong Group. Today’s sentencing, 24 hours after former top insurance regulator Xiang Junbo received an 11-year prison term for accepting bribes, reflects the push by China's government to clean up corporate malfeasance and corruption, as the country struggles with its worst economic crisis in four decades amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Wang Zhenhua, at the time of his arrest last year. Photo: Toutiao

Wang, 58, was detained after a woman complained he had sexually assaulted her daughter in a Shanghai hotel in June last year. The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, China’s top political body responsible for law and order, said the tycoon took children as his playthings, calling it “dirty and obscene.”

Future Land has since renamed itself Seazen Group. The stock jumped 5 per cent to HK$7.30 (94 US cents) in Hong Kong on Wednesday. It has slumped by about 26 per cent since Wang’s arrest last July.

The disgraced billionaire controlled 71 per cent of Seazen, according to its financial accounts before his arrest. The developer, which he established in Changzhou city in Jiangsu province in 1993, owns 48.9 per cent of Seazen Holdings, whose stock in Shanghai climbed 2 per cent to 32.23 yuan. However, it has lost 19 per cent over the past year.