China tycoon gets 19 year sentence, loses $185 million

BEIJING (Reuters) - Zhang Rongkun, a Chinese tycoon embroiled in a social security fund scandal, was sentenced on Monday to 19 years in jail and had 1.3 billion yuan ($185.3 million) of assets confiscated, the official Xinhua agency said.

Once one of the country's richest men, 40-year-old Zhang was convicted of crimes including bribery, manipulating the stock market and fraudulently issuing bonds, the report said.

The court in northeastern Jilin province -- far from Zhang's network of power and influence -- handed out 50 million yuan in fines to a company in which Zhang was chairman, and another 230 million bill to a company he owned, Xinhua said.

It did not detail which assets were confiscated.

The former garment salesman, who ranked 16th on the Forbes China Rich List in 2005, was accused of bribing a former director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Social Security, to secure a 3.2 billion yuan loan from a city fund, Xinhua said.

His downfall was part of a wider pension fund scandal, which emerged in 2006, involved the misappropriation of at least 33 billion yuan ($4.7 billion), and has toppled dozens of the city's government officials and executives.

Among them was Chen Liangyu, the former Communist Party chief of China's financial hub and the most senior official to be toppled for corruption since former Beijing Party boss Chen Xitong was sacked in 1995.

Chen's trial began last month and he is still awaiting a verdict.