Ex-China central banker accused of accepting ‘massive’ bribes admits to ‘huge mistake’
A disgraced former Chinese central banker admitting to making a “huge mistake” after being arrested last year on suspicion of bribery.
Fan Yifei, 59, was the highest-ranking official at the People’s Bank of China when he was arrested under President Xi Jinping’s campaign to weed out the “flies and ants” in the financial, energy and infrastructure sectors.
Fan was part of a scheme that involved receiving “extraordinarily massive” payments from executives of various companies in exchange for favors while at the bank from 2015 to 2022, according to a documentary by state broadcaster CCTV that aired Tuesday and earlier reported on by CNN.
In the four-part series, Fan said: “I wanted to possess great power, and at the same time, to be rich. I made a huge mistake.”
“I was completely wrong,” he added in the CCTV program, which detailed Fan’s bribery scheme of accepting payments from high-earning businesspeople through his brother’s investment company.
In return, he allegedly helped them secure loans and contracts — all the while he was accepting gifts, including concert tickets and invitations to golf games, according to CNN.
A joint statement from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervisory Commission issued last year divulged that Fan took part in lavish banquets and travel arrangements “in violation of regulations for a long time.”
He also arranged jobs for his relatives, who were able to take home generous salaries without actually working, the government agencies said, per CNN.
The program did not specify how much money Fan had accepted overall or whether any of the companies had US ties.
After Fan was arrested last June, he was expelled from the Communist Party and removed from his post for serious violations of discipline and the law, state media reported at the time.
In September, he was officially charged with bribery following an investigation by the National Supervisory Commission, the highest anti-corruption authority in the People’s Republic of China.
Fan was reportedly one of 100 financial officials who were handed down punishments as part of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign.
In the worst case, the former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co. Lai Xiaomin was sentenced to death after being found guilty of receiving roughly $277 million in bribes between 2008 and 2018.
He was also found guilty of bigamy, Bloomberg reported after he was handed the unusually-severe punishment in early January 2021.
By the end of the month, Xiaomin had been executed.
He was 58.
