Former Shanghai property tycoon Zhou Zhengyi (周正毅) has been charged with bribery and forging tax invoices, less than a year after being released from jail for fraud, an official and state media said yesterday.
"Zhou was suspected of these crimes when official prosecutors were looking into other [corrup-tion] cases," a Shanghai government spokeswoman said.
Zhou, 46, was taken back into custody in October after prosecutors found new evidence related to incidents of bribes and filing bogus value-added tax receipts, she said.
"After obtaining the related evidence in investigation, the prosecution decided to arrest Zhou on Sunday," she said.
Once one of China's richest people, Zhou was convicted in June 2004 by a city court of manipulating share prices and falsifying information about his then troubled flagship company, Shanghai Nongkai Development Group.
Before being jailed, Zhou was the majority shareholder of Hong Kong-listed Shanghai Land Holdings and Shanghai Merchants Holdings.
He was released from prison in May last year, but the government confirmed last month he was under renewed investigation.
Zhou was originally accused by city residents of colluding with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials to dupe locals out of fair payment for valuable land in Shanghai but was found not guilty.
Zhou's case brought to light the links between the city government and the real estate sector, setting in motion tighter oversight in the country's notoriously corrupt property market.
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