Ling Chengxing, former head of China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for accepting bribes and abusing power. The sentence was handed down May 21, by the intermediate people’s court of Changchun in northeast China’s Jilin Province. He was also fined 4 million yuan ($560,000), while all his illegal gains must be recovered and turned over to the state treasury, the court sentence read.
Ling was found to have accepted bribes worth 43.11 million yuan ($6 million) between 2006 and 2023, taking advantage of his various posts in matters of project contracting and business operations. Moreover, since 2015, during his tenure as Party chief and director of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and general manager of China National Tobacco Corporation, Ling was said to have “engaged in favoritism, corruption, and abuse of power in the process of facilitating and reviewing matters related to investment and equity acquisition, resulting in a loss of state-owned assets amounting to over 208 million yuan ($29 million), per the court verdict.”
