A FORMER official in Futian District, Liang Yong, received a 10-year imprisonment for corruption, according to the verdict announced recently by Yantian District People’s Court, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

The verdict showed that Liang had taken more 4.4 million yuan (US$657,295) and over HK$700,000 (US$89,530) in bribes when he was serving as director and deputy director at the district’s building affairs department.

Liang reportedly abused his authority by assisting others in gaining approvals for construction projects from the government in return for bribes during his tenure.

To avoid being inspected, Liang attempted to cover up his illegal income by receiving it over multiple transactions from his bribers.

It was also reported that when Liang’s corruption was about to be disclosed, he even turned to an underground bank to return all the bribes.

Last April, the city’s discipline watchdog released a statement saying that Liang was under investigation for suspected corruption. At that time, he was the director of the government investment project office in Futian District.

The Yantian court has found that from 2011 to 2012, Liang had illegally accepted multiple bribes. He took a bribe of 2 million yuan from a businessman surnamed Lin in September 2012 when Liang was in need of money to purchase a property.

Lin happened to know that Liang needed the money to buy the property, so he sent boxes of cash, totaling 2 million yuan, to Liang a few days after they had met up in Liang’s office. In return, Liang took advantage of his post to ensure Lin’s bid for an urban renovation project in Futian.

Liang later admitted that he had used Lin’s bribe to buy the property.

In November the same year, Liang accepted another 2-million-yuan bribe from a businessman identified as Dian. For fear of being discovered, Liang asked for the bribe to be transferred through a former colleague and Liang eventually received the money in cash.

However, when Dian was taken away for investigation at the end of 2015, Liang returned the same amount of money to Dian’s family through an underground bank and claimed that he had been borrowing the money from Dian, but the court did not believe Liang’s defense.

The court decided to give Liang a 10-year prison sentence and a fine of 500,000 yuan.

(Zhang Qian)