Leader of China's $9 billion Ezubao online scam gets life; 26 jailed

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing court on Tuesday sentenced the architect of the $9 billion Ezubao online financial scam to life imprisonment, and handed down jail time to 26 others, marking the close to one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in modern Chinese history.

The ruling comes at a time when the government is stepping up efforts to crack down on risky and illicit behaviour in the country's financial sector, including the unruly peer-to-peer industry that continues to attract high volumes.

Beijing First Intermediate People's Court sentenced Ding Ning - chairman of Anhui Yucheng Holdings Group that launched Ezubao in 2014 - to life in prison and fined him 100 million yuan ($15.29 million) for crimes including illegal fundraising, illegal gun possession and smuggling precious metals.

Ding Dian, the chairman's brother, was also sentenced to life, while Zhang Min, Yucheng's president, and 24 others were sentenced to imprisonment for 3 to 15 years, according to an article on the Beijing Courts social media account.

Ezubao, once China's biggest P2P lending platform, folded last year after it turned out to be a Ponzi scheme that collected 59.8 billion yuan ($9.14 billion) from more than 900,000 investors through savvy marketing.

By the time police made arrests in early 2016, the company had failed to repay 38 billion yuan.

The incident sparked a crackdown on the freewheeling online financial services market and led to new regulations to control China's P2P industry - where monthly volumes are above $50 billion, statistics published by industry portal P2P001 show.

Ezubao's excesses also became a cautionary tale following its collapse. Ding collected a monthly salary of 1 million yuan, and admitted on state television to spending an estimated 1.5 billion yuan in Ezubao funds on himself.

"We fabricated projects to raise money," Ding said, according to a Xinhua report published last year, and then used fabricated project companies to re-circulate cash back into accounts linked to his companies.

Ding also asked dozens of his secretaries to dress only in Chanel, Gucci and other luxury branded clothing to make the company appear highly successful.

He told Zhang, the group president, to buy up everything from every Louis Vuitton and Hermes store in China. (http://reut.rs/2xsfaHH)

($1 = 6.5385 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Matthew Miller; Editing by Himani Sarkar)