Following a high-profile default five years ago, China on Thursday penalized Evergrande and an affiliate over US$2 billion and jailed Xu Jiayin, the founder of the troubled real estate company, to life in prison.

When the government imposed restrictions on excessive borrowing and speculation, Evergrande Group's access to credit drastically decreased. Evergrande Group was the face of Chinese real estate, riding a decades-long property bubble while promoting home-ownership dreams.

After having trouble paying creditors, the business went into default in 2021.

A south Chinese court punished the company and its real estate division 15.82 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) on Thursday.

Jiayin, also known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was given a life sentence for a number of offenses, including "large-scale financial fraud."

“Xu Jiayin was sentenced for multiple crimes and fined, received a life sentence, with political rights revoked for life and all his personal property confiscated,” the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in Guangdong province said in a post on its WeChat account.

According to the court, Evergrande and Jiayin "violated national laws by engaging in continuous, large-scale financial fraud and other means to inflate assets and conceal liabilities" between 2016 and 2021.

Without identifying the financial institutions, it also stated that the parties "gained control of financial institutions" through bribery.

According to the court at the time, Jiayin entered a guilty plea in April to accusations that also included bribery and embezzlement.

According to the Shenzhen court, five other senior executives of Evergrande Group were also convicted on Thursday to prison terms ranging from six to eighteen years for offenses including fraud.

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