Legal News

Something Bernie Madoff Can Feel Thankful For

By Ashby Jones

We’re guessing that few days pass in which Bernie Madoff, who, by our calculations, has served about 1/360th of his sentence, thanks his lucky stars for his fate in life.

But hopefully someone will print out this post and send it down to Butner, N.C., where Madoff is serving time. For we’ve stumbled across one reason Madoff should be thanking his lucky stars: He didn’t pull of his Ponzi scheme in China.

We had this thought today after coming across an AP article about some goings on on the criminal front over in China. The state media reported on Thursday that China executed two business people for defrauding hundreds of investors out of more than $127 million.

China’s highest court said the fraud had “seriously damaged the country’s financial regulatory order and social stability,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The report said Du Yimin, a beauty parlor owner from eastern Zhejiang province, collected more than $102.5 million from hundreds of investors by promising them monthly returns of up to 10 percent from investments in beauty parlors, real estate and mining businesses owned by her company. She spent most of the money on houses, cars and luxury items, Xinhua said.

The second defendant, Si Chaxian, collected 167 million yuan $24 million from 300 people by saying they could receive interest of up to 108 percent.

China puts to death more people than any other country, though typically reserves such punishments for violent crimes. Death sentences are, however, meted out for nonviolent offenses that involve large sums of money or are seen to threaten social order.

The two were executed Wednesday.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 06, 2009 (boomark / email).