FOUR former employees of Shenzhen Internet giant Tencent went on trial at Nanshan District People’s Court on Wednesday for allegedly embezzling several million yuan, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Thursday.

    The group is accused of using a third-party company to skim money off funds meant for public relations.

    One defendant, named Yue Yu, worked for Tencent before joining Alibaba in February 2014. Another defendant, Xiao Feng, had resigned from Tencent to found an online advertising agency with Tencent as a main client.

    According to Xiao, Yue contacted him in early 2011, saying that she needed Xiao’s company to work as an intermediary to transfer money for a Tencent project, adding that Tencent’s leadership had approved the cooperation.

    Xiao said he accepted the deal because he wanted to help his old employer.

    Later, Xiao’s company received 8 million yuan (US$1.26 million) from Tencent and another 1.8 million yuan from a Shanghai-based advertising company. The money was then transferred to Yue and two other Tencent’s ex-employees, Zhang Dongbo and Fan Dan, as Yue told Xiao to, after being taxed.

    According to the prosecutor, Yue got 5.52 million yuan from Xiao, while Zhang and Fan received 680,000 yuan and 670,000 yuan, respectively. Xiao’s company also benefited from the business with Tencent.

    Both Yue and Zhang denied embezzling money, saying that the money transfer records with Xiao showed what they had borrowed from Xiao, which Xiao denied.

    Xiao said he transferred 1.5 million yuan of Tencent’s money to Yue because Yue told him she was going to buy a car, but Yue insisted she was only borrowing money from Xiao. Fan admitted that she spent part of the money on public relations work and took the rest for personal use.

    According to the prosecutor, Yue, Zhang and Fan misled Tencent into paying Xiao’s company by saying the money was going to public relations.

    After Tencent transferred the payment to Xiao’s company, they kept the extra money and used the rest for real media work, the prosecutor said.

    When Tencent partnered with the Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp. (JSBC) to promote its microblog business in Jiangsu Province, Yue and Zhang led Tencent to sign a contract involving 1.8 million yuan with the Shanghai-based company, which they told Tencent was appointed by JSBC.

    Yue partially admitted to embezzlement at the beginning of the investigation, but later withdrew her confession, saying Tencent approved the way she acquired money because the money was used for the company’s marketing. Yue said she didn’t fully explain herself at first because she was afraid bribery may have been involved, which would affect the company.

    Yue said they offered money, gifts, free meals and trips to TV media employees to secure lower advertising prices for Tencent.

    Fan said she once gave a TV program’s producer 140,000 yuan per year to avoid paying tens of thousands of yuan per second for TV commercials.

    Yue said that Tencent’s public relations budget was insufficient to cover the expense of maintaining cooperation with TV media, so the company approved using a third-party to funnel money into the project.

    Yue claimed Tencent would often sign agreements of cooperation with TV media, sometimes with no money or only a small amount involved on paper. Actually the person representing the television programs would receive money from Tencent through a third-party company to help the deal go through, said Yue, adding that Tencent used this method to avoid being accused of bribery. The hearing continues. (Zhang Yang)