Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 523 posts

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#211

Post by maxglute »

b112 wrote: post #119
Danox wrote: post #115

The antifreeze toothpaste people didn’t get away with it, nor did the 3000 pigs in the river people, and nor did that one group of executives who were in charge of a fertilizer/chemical plant that was one of the largest industrial catastrophes in the world let alone China. If you get caught in China, Vietnam, or Singapore the penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance. You can’t buy your way out if you do…

You're only hearing about the ones caught and punished. You have no proof of "Zero tolerance", or of what percentage of people are caught.

CCDI has disciplined like 7m+ officials by now, flies and tigers (low and high), _you_ only hear about the juiciest tigers. 100+ provincial/ministerial officials gets investigated per year. It's a wide anti corruption program, lazy but easy back of envelop calc, there's ~100m CCP members, need to be CCP to be in politics and business, so 7/100 ~7% of those classes including top level, which feels like reasonable amount given historic corruption rates. Anecdotally, petty level corruption essentially gone, corrupt/graft industrial complex (banquets/gifts etc it was entire service sector withing broader luxury) went out of business 10 years ago. Not saying corruption gone - it's evolved to your normal financial vehicle engineering like in west.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#212

Post by kcatskcolbdi »

echelon wrote: post #205
pibaker wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t buy your way out if you do something Not with money.

It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money.

Generally the only people that get harshly punished in the west are the ones who steal/defraud from rich people.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#213

Post by arjie »

mothballed wrote: post #2

Main difference between death penalty in US and China, is in US police officers easily sentence subjects to death and the courts do it with great difficulty. In China the inverse. For instance, high level executive Bryan Malinowski was executed by the ATF and barely anyone noticed, but if the courts had sentenced him in such way, there would be great outrage.

Interesting story. This guy was actually airport director at the airport in Little Rock, AR. He used to buy and sell a bunch of guns and was an avid collector. He was killed when ATF agents raided his home and he responded with gunfire. The controversy seems to circle around the fact that:

* the ATF decided not to raid his home when he was out of town but early in the morning when he was at home

* the ATF gave him 28 seconds to comply with their announcement after which they battered the door down

Given the fact that the agents weren't wearing body cameras, the guy had a normal day job that he'd go to, and that 28 seconds is certainly too short to dispose of firearms it does seem a lot like execution served by way of search warrant. Certainly, I wouldn't be able to let anyone in 28 s after waking up to pounding on my door.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#214

Post by mothballed »

golem14 wrote: post #208
echelon wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money.

Right, cough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli , cough.

Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized and that they would invest with him again. He didn't lose them any money or have any actual damages to people for the crime he was convicted of. I don't think he'd go to jail for what he did there in China, or even probably Singapore.

If you're thinking of the pharmacy drug price jacking thing, the thing he did that physically harmed many people, he wasn't convicted for that.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#215

Post by kebez »

echelon wrote: post #205
pibaker wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t buy your way out if you do something Not with money.

It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money.

[dead]

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#216

Post by golem14 »

mothballed wrote: post #214
golem14 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, cough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli , cough.

Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized and that they would invest with him again. He didn't lose them any money or have any actual damages to people for the crime he was convicted of. I don't think he'd go to jail for what he did there in China, or even probably Singapore. If you're thinking of the pharmacy drug price jacking thing, the thing he did that physically harmed many people, h…

> Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized

That makes it right? And that is what you think is reprehensible about him ?

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#217

Post by mothballed »

golem14 wrote: post #216
mothballed wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized and that they would invest with him again. He didn't lose them any money or have any actual damages to people for the crime he was convicted of. I don't think he'd go to jail for what he did there in China, or even probably Singapore. If you're thinking of the pharmacy drug price jacking thing, the thing he did that physically harmed many people, h…

> Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized That makes it right? And that is what you think is reprehensible about him ?

It's not right, but that's how you get convicted of these crimes in Asia. If you make your investors money, everyone is happy, it's incredibly, incredibly incredibly unlikely you'll be convicted for defrauding them. In fact in the USA it's extremely rare to get convicted of defrauding a person that got the returns they want and have no interest in pressing charges.

Now maybe if you hurt someone else in the process you'll get convicted, but that's not what happened in Shkreli's fraud conviction, the only people he was accused of harming were the investors who said weren't harmed and had no damages or interest in prosecution.

What happened to Shkreli was a most extreme anomaly practically worldwide.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#218

Post by stevenally »

mothballed wrote: post #214
golem14 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, cough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli , cough.

Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized and that they would invest with him again. He didn't lose them any money or have any actual damages to people for the crime he was convicted of. I don't think he'd go to jail for what he did there in China, or even probably Singapore. If you're thinking of the pharmacy drug price jacking thing, the thing he did that physically harmed many people, h…

"He wasn't convicted for that". Maybe that's the point. Maybe he should have been.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#219

Post by mrandish »

TrackerFF wrote: post #8

I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west. But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?

> Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing

Almost certainly. But it's not simple to understand because four things are simultaneously true:

1. Corruption is a serious problem Xi is genuinely focused on reducing through high-profile prosecutions with extreme sentences.

2. Xi and his party lieutenants have certainly used corruption charges to eliminate central party 'Titans' because they got too powerful, got too greedy, or were deemed insufficiently 'loyal'.

3. Corruption is pervasive at almost every level and there's no way most of it can be eliminated anytime soon. In fact, the system relies on it to function as well as it does. The purpose of these high-profile prosecutions is only to reduce the size and frequency of corruption. It reminds officials that stealing half the money half the time can be bad for their health. So they stick closer to taking 10-20% only 10-20% of the time.

4. The sub-1% of corrupt officials who are prosecuted, likely end up being busted because they got 'too greedy' and were made a sacrificial lamb by their corrupt peers to fill the system's need for a few high-profile examples. The 'too greedy' isn't from taking too much, it's usually from not greasing enough palms with enough money (including the provincial corruption investigators themselves). When there's tens of millions of dollars of illicit money at stake, the dynamics become like de facto organized crime mobs and there's always competition between factions. This guy probably knows exactly which rival played the game better and beat him.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#220

Post by golem14 »

mothballed wrote: post #217
golem14 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized That makes it right? And that is what you think is reprehensible about him ?

It's not right, but that's how you get convicted of these crimes in Asia. If you make your investors money, everyone is happy, it's incredibly, incredibly incredibly unlikely you'll be convicted for defrauding them. In fact in the USA it's extremely rare to get convicted of defrauding a person that got the returns they want and have no interest in pressing charges. Now maybe if you hurt someone else in the process yo…

I don't agree. If this sleazeball had done this in China, there's a good probability that with enough complaints he'd seen a pretty swift reckoning.

IMO, the Chinese government has a pretty good ear for the happiness of their population.

It depends on how the complaints are voiced. Karen-like entitled complaints are definitely not working there. Often, legit complaints also do not work, but sometimes they do.

I'm curious if this particular guy is actually going to be executed or the sentence being commuted to life without parole, like in other cases. Looks like it's not.

Post reply on HN