Former Bank Officials Accused of Misappropriating Funds

According to Foresight News, in August 2020, the former party secretary of Huludao Bank, Li Yulin, and the former acting president, Li Xiaodong, were accused of colluding with Duan Hongtao, the bank's former major shareholder, and Zhou Zhilong. They allegedly created a false asset management plan to misappropriate 2.6 billion yuan from the bank, which was used by Duan Hongtao for personal expenses. Of this, over 1.8 billion yuan was illegally converted into foreign currency and transferred to a Hong Kong company account controlled by Duan Hongtao. A jobless man in his 30s was sentenced to two years and three months in prison and fined 2 million yuan for using his two bank cards to help transfer over 250 million yuan of the aforementioned funds. Between September and October 2020, Xiang and others, including Chen, Zheng, Xu, Kong, and another Xiang, along with defendant Chen, were organized and directed by Xiang. Chen was responsible for counting and verifying the funds, Zheng was in charge of remittances, while Xu, Kong, Xiang, and defendant Chen were involved in purchasing cryptocurrencies at higher than market prices in WeChat groups like 'Longmen Inn'. The acquired cryptocurrencies were then sold abroad through overseas cryptocurrency buyers, and the proceeds were converted into US dollars and other currencies and remitted to a Hong Kong company bank account.