The founder of Evergrande, one of China’s largest property developers, has been sentenced to life in prison and had all of his personal property confiscated.
Hui Ka Yan, 67 and once named by Forbes as China’s richest man, with a net worth of $42.5bn (£31.2bn) in 2017, pleaded guilty in April to eight charges.
These included misuse of funds, fundraising fraud, illegally taking public deposits, illegally extending loans, fraudulently issuing securities and bribery.
The company Hui founded, Evergrande Group, was fined 8.8bn yuan (£950m), while its property arm was fined 7bn yuan, according to Chinese state media.
Hui’s convictions relate to a debt crisis at Evergrande, which shook China at a time when the government had been trying to make the world’s second-largest economy less reliant on the real estate sector.
Evergrande, which delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange last year, has…
PAYROLL & HR CONTROLS (PREVENTING “GHOST” SCHEMES)
Payroll fraud is often the hardest to detect because it “looks” like a normal business expense.
- Segregation of Duties (SoD): The person who adds new employees to the system must not be the same person who approves the monthly pay run.
- Mandatory Vacation Policy: Require all financial and HR staff to take 5–10 consecutive days of leave annually. Fraud often surfaces when the perpetrator isn’t there to “hide” the trail.
- Ghost Employee Audit: Perform a quarterly “Headcount Reconciliation” where managers must physically verify every name on their payroll list exists.
- Self-Pay Blocking: Ensure the payroll software has a hard-coded block preventing administrators from editing their own salary or bank details.