Hui Ka Yan, the founder of Chinese property conglomerate Evergrande Group and once was one of the richest men in Asia, was sentenced to life in prison by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong Province on Thursday.

The Chinese court found Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, guilty of multiple crimes, while 56 related individuals will be imprisoned between 22 months and 18 years. The crimes include corporate bribery, unlawful disclosure of important information and illegal issuance of loans and securities, various media agencies reported.

As part of the sentencing, Evergrande Group, which was forced to delist from the Hong Kong exchange in 2025, faced a fine of 8.82 billion yuan, while Evergrande Real Estate Group received a fine of 7 billion yuan.

"The criminal acts of Xu and the two companies seriously disrupted the socialist market economy, infringed upon public and private property rights, and undermined the integrity of public officials in the performance of their duties, the court said, adding that given the exceptionally large sums involved, the particularly egregious circumstances, the extraordinarily heavy economic losses caused, and the extremely serious harm to society, they should be severely punished in accordance with the law," Xinhua wrote.

Hui's legal woes started in late 2021 when Evergrande defaulted on loans following Beijing's 2020 debt crackdown in the real estate sector. In April 2026, Hui pleaded guilty. Thursday's ruling found that the Evergrande group of companies was engaged in widespread financial fraud via inflated assets and concealed liabilities, among others.

The liquidators for Evergrande had no comment on the ruling when reached by MT Newswires.