A 30-year-old Chinese woman was sentenced to death by a court in Wenzhou for "cheating" investors of 100.11 million yuan ($16 million) losing 94 million yuan in futures and gold trading, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday. The death sentence for Wang Caiping - who must first serve two years in prison - came days after Beijing launched a pilot programme in Wenzhou to tame the informal private lending market to which the city's renowned entrepreneurs often turn.
Xinhua said Wang borrowed the money between January and October 2010 promising to buy equipment, invest in property and open credit guarantee firms, but instead used the cash to speculate in futures and gold trading along with her elder brother, Wang Guanglin, who is still at large.