China Sentences Evergrande Founder to Life in Prison

BREAKING: China sentences Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan to life in prison, capping the downfall of a property empire whose collapse triggered a prolonged crisis in the Chinese economy.

Life in prison for the man who built China's biggest property empire.

A court in China has sentenced Hui Ka Yan, the founder of Evergrande, to life behind bars. This is the man who was once China's richest, and this is him now, standing between two officers at his sentencing.

Remember the scale of what fell. Evergrande was the most indebted developer on the planet, and when it buckled it dragged the entire Chinese property sector down with it, unfinished towers, unpaid suppliers, families who'd handed over savings for apartments that never got built. Beijing let the company die, and now it's made an example of the man who ran it.

The message from the top could not be louder. In China, you can build an empire on borrowed money, but when it collapses on ordinary people, the state will come for you, and it will not settle for a fine.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.