Chinese man gets jail for $8.5 bln gold futures fraud

BEIJING (Reuters) - A man in eastern China has been given a 9-year jail term for buying and selling over 58 billion yuan ($8.5 billion) worth of fraudulent gold futures, state media said on Thursday.

The man, named as Zhang Yong from the prosperous eastern province of Zhejiang, "was accused of illegal operation and flight of capital contribution", the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the court.

"It was believed to be the biggest ever case of illegal gold futures dealing," the report added.

Zhang found clients by advertising his services on the Internet, and had more than 1,000 as of June last year for his online trading platform.

But his company apparently did no real trade in any gold futures, Xinhua said.

"The gold dealing of the company was not connected with the international market ... The company acted as both the buyer and seller and charged a fee from each deal," it added, without elaborating.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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