On March 20, 2020, the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a notice on the Internet:
"Sun Deshun, former deputy secretary of the party committee and president of China CITIC Bank Co., Ltd., has been investigated for serious violations of discipline and law."
As soon as this news came out, it immediately received widespread attention from the masses of society.
Figure 1 Sun Deshun
Finance has always been the lifeblood of the national economy, which is related to the national economy and people's livelihood and various fields of economic and social development. Corruption in the financial sector is often intertwined with various risks in the market, which can not only affect the role of financial functions, but also more likely to trigger systemic risks.
In 2018, Lai Xiaomin, secretary of the party committee and chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co., Ltd., was investigated by the relevant authorities for financial corruption and was seriously investigated.
In that year, the news that Lai Xiaomin had used his power to amass a fortune of 1.7 billion yuan was so well-known that people were surprised by Lai Xiaomin's corrupt tactics and also worried about the integrity of public servants in the financial sector.
Now, Sun Deshun, the helmsman of China CITIC Bank, has once again raised the issue of financial corruption to the cusp of the storm.
It has been learned that the Sun Deshun case is a financial corruption case in China's financial sector that has the largest amount of bribes, the greatest social impact, and the most "spent" means of corruption in China's financial sector after the Lai Xiaomin case.
So, how much money has Sun Deshun been greedy for so many years?
How did he cover up his corruption?
Officials and businessmen colluded to lend money in violation of the law
Sun Deshun, born in November 1958, was a high-achieving student at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.
In April 1981, after graduating from Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, he entered the Chinese Bank.
After entering the Chinese Bank, Sun Deshun sat up from the counter staff at the lowest level, relied on his excellent business ability, and became the mainstay of the bank all the way.
In May 1984, Sun Deshun was transferred to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Figure 3
In 1995, he was promoted to Assistant President and Vice President of industrial and commercial bank of China Beijing Branch.
In 2005, Sun Deshun was again transferred by the organization, and he parachuted into the Beijing branch of the Bank of Communications of China, where he picked the secretary and president on his shoulders and became a real "helmsman".
Five years later, due to Sun Deshun's outstanding achievements in his work, he was promoted to the party secretary and president of the Beijing branch of the Bank of Communications, becoming the only "boss" of all the banks in Beijing.
In the past thirty years of work, Sun Deshun has been in charge of accounting, company, personal finance, credit, investment banking, technology, credit card and other major business sectors of the bank, which also makes him the president of all commercial banks in the country, the strongest business ability.
Figure 4
In this regard, Sun Deshun is also very complacent, he once said with a little pride in an interview with reporters in 2010:
"A president like me who has been in charge of so many business sectors is probably rare among commercial bank branches."
Sun Deshun is proud that he does have his proud capital, as a bank president who has been made step by step from the bottom teller, he knows almost every business sector of commercial banks, and these rich work experiences have indeed allowed him to have more capital in competing with other opponents.
In October 2011, Sun Deshun stood out from many candidates and was sent to China CITIC Bank as deputy secretary of the party committee.
Two months after the new official took office, he became the new vice president of China CITIC Bank.
Figure 5
China CITIC Bank, a large state-controlled commercial bank with total assets of more than HK$1,200 billion, is the seventh largest bank in Chinese mainland, with a total of more than 540 branches nationwide and more than 16,000 employees.
With the vigorous development of the real estate industry, as a large commercial bank, China CITIC Bank naturally has to contact real estate developers.
The loan amounts of these developers are often extremely large, so it is also very obvious that the large benefits brought to China CITIC Bank are also very obvious.
However, there is still a lot of bubbles in the real estate industry after all, once the real estate developer's project is broken or the real estate developer goes bankrupt, then the lending bank will have a large number of bad debts, once this is not only the loss of a bank of China CITIC Bank, it is likely to be a disaster in the entire financial field.
Figure 6
Therefore, in recent years, the Party Central Committee has repeatedly emphasized:
"Finance should return to the source of serving the real economy, increase support for the manufacturing industry, and prevent excessive concentration of credit funds in the real estate industry."
However, Sun Deshun, who was eager to achieve success, left all these words of the Party Central Committee behind.
After becoming the executive director and president of China CITIC Bank, Sun Deshun not only increased his lending efforts to the real estate industry, but also further reduced the share of loans in the real estate industry.
Figure 7
As the head of the bank, he even said bluntly at the president's office meeting:
"All over the bank, now immediately give me the manufacturing loan to stop!" Even if the business has 100% mortgage, it will not work! ”
"During this period, the results of China CITIC Bank's loans have changed dramatically. On the one hand, the loan growth rate of the real estate industry reached 40%, and the manufacturing loan was under pressure at that time, and the pressure drop was more than 30%. ——Liu Cheng, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of China CITIC Bank
Sun Deshun's approach of only pursuing immediate interests has indeed received the results he wants to see, and in the annual reports from 2016 to 2019, China CITIC Bank's performance is quite beautiful.
However, the long-term risks posed by the problem of China CITIC Bank's over-accounting for loans to the real estate sector have since begun to emerge.
Figure 8
In February 2020, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a huge fine of 22 million yuan to China CITIC Bank, and 13 of the 19 penalties were related to the real estate business.
The reason why Sun Deshun increased his real estate loan business, in addition to pursuing beautiful political achievements, rich personal interests are also the reasons why he is willing to take risks.
After becoming the leader of China CITIC Bank, the success of the loan business was entirely between his sun Deshun's thoughts.
As long as he nodded, even if the company owed a bunch of foreign debt, hundreds of millions, billions, billions of loans can still easily hit the company's account.
But as long as he shakes his head, even if the qualifications of the enterprise are good and the mortgages are more, they will be rejected by the bank.
Figure 9
Therefore, these business owners have set their sights on this President Sun who can be described as a hand covering the sky at China CITIC Bank. They began to inquire about Sun Deshun's news, always creating opportunities to meet Sun Deshun, and then looking for opportunities to hunt Sun Deshun.
In the face of the temptation of real money and silver, Sun Deshun finally failed to keep the bottom line of integrity, he began to open the door of convenience for these real estate developers, and then also opened his own private account, and the power and money transaction began to play out wildly on Sun Deshun's body.
A real estate company owner once sent 10 million yuan to the company actually controlled by Sun Deshun in the name of investment.
Shortly thereafter, the boss received a 4 billion yuan business loan from China CITIC Bank on his company account.
In the corruption cases previously published by the media, the merchants used to pay bribes in addition to cash were famous cars, watches, and mansions, but when the supervision organs inspected Sun Deshun's personal account, they found that the property under his name was simply clean and innocent.
Figure 10
So, what method did Sun Deshun use to cover up his corrupt gains so tightly?
Layers of packaging to cover up corruption
Sun Deshun is the only leading cadre in the whole country who has grown from the lowest level of the bank to the head office of the state-owned bank step by step.
So his heart is extremely complacent, and it can even be said that he is somewhat conceited, and he believes that his business ability is among the best in the country.
In his eyes, cash transactions are simply the lowest and most brutal way of bribery, which sooner or later will have to show their feet, so Sun Deshun never wants cash when he accepts bribes.
Figure 11
Sun Deshun accepted bribes in a more professional way – cashing in on benefits.
"Because I am a person who came up from the grassroots level and my business ability is relatively strong, I always feel that my business ability is there, which has caused a fluke mentality." --Sun Deshun
In order to complete the transfer of benefits more covertly, the cunning Sun Deshun specially arranged for two henchmen to open two investment platform companies as agents, and although the legal person of the company is only these two "shadows", the actual control of these two companies is still the real body of the shadow - Sun Deshun.
Figure 12
"I am such a voice speaker at the front desk, so there is only one person behind me, and that is Sun Deshun." The salary of our main management personnel, the decision-making of the core business of this company and this decision-making, it is actually up to him to decide, how to allocate the share of the project, it is these details, it is also determined by him. The head of the platform company controlled by Sun Deshun warm
Sun Deshun's bribery method can be described as unique, and its degree of specialization and complexity is also quite rare in the entire financial world.
Sun Deshun used the two platform companies that he actually controlled as the first layer of "shadows" hidden in front of him, and set up more than a dozen companies in addition to these "shadows" to be "shadow shadows".
The boss of the bribe-paying enterprise does not inform his own company to directly deal with it, but sets up a shell company as a third layer of shadow, and finally implements the bribery fact through the method of "shadow and shadow transaction".
The nesting of multiple layers of shadow companies makes the transaction entity itself more confusing. Power-money transactions are disguised as various seemingly legitimate financial products and equity investment agreements, and Sun Deshun Group officially uses this "shadow transaction" to pass on benefits.
Figure 13
On the one hand, Sun De successfully used public power to approve loans from these business owners. Correspondingly, some of these bosses inject huge sums of money into the platform companies he actually controls in the name of investment, while others send Sun Deshun high-quality investment projects or investment opportunities.
Platform companies use the funds provided by these bosses to invest in the projects provided by those bosses, and invest the money from bribes to invest in projects that come from bribes and then produce their own "own" wealth, so that sun Deshun's property has become clean, all of which are "investment" income, and no one can find anything wrong.
Sun Deshun thought that his "brilliant plan" was seamless, but how did he expect that an incident that happened 6 years ago had exposed his fox tail.
In December 2014, an energy company that had already carried a bunch of foreign debt applied for a loan from China CITIC Bank, and according to the bank's lending guidelines, the bank must refuse to apply for a loan for such a company with high debt.
But under Sun Deshun's intervention, the energy company eventually received a commercial loan of 4 billion yuan, which naturally became a bad debt later.
Figure 14
According to the bank's general loan approval process, the loan customer needs to submit the loan application materials to the bank first, after which the bank will approve it step by step according to the procedure.
According to the system of China CITIC Bank, the approval of loans must be passed by a collective vote of the credit approval meeting, and the president of the bank has only one veto right over the credit approval, and does not have the right to make decisions.
However, Sun Deshun often ignored the banking system, used the method caused by the procedure to operate illegally, and took the initiative to point fingers at the approval of loans and help his interest groups to seek benefits.
In order to thank President Sun for his "dedication" in the loan, the owner of this energy company and the platform company controlled by Sun Deshun signed a so-called "capital increase agreement", through the so-called equity investment agreement, so that the company controlled by Sun Deshun actually made a profit of 100 million!
From this case, the special case team grasped the source of all evil, swept away the ghosts, and then pulled out the entire Sun Deshun interest group.
Figure 15
On March 20, 2020, Sun Deshun was expelled from the party and opened for investigation.
On April 8, 2020, Sun Deshun was officially arrested by the People's Procuratorate of Jinan City, Shandong Province, in accordance with the law.
On January 22, 2021, CCTV broadcast a series of documentaries "Zero Tolerance", where the people once again saw Sun Deshun's figure. At this time, Sun Deshun, who was already in prison, had long since ceased to be proud of the spring breeze of the past, and in the face of the media camera, he finally lowered his arrogant head.
epilogue:
In response to the problems exposed by Sun Deshun's case, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission promoted the CITIC Banking system to carry out special rectification of "using cases to promote reform".
The first is to straighten out the corporate governance structure, strengthen the responsibilities of the board of directors, the board of supervisors and senior management, and determine the relationship between mutual restraint and mutual supervision.
At the same time, we will promote the reform of the trust system, risk management system and approval system, strengthen the accountability mechanism, improve the corporate governance system, and improve governance capabilities.
Figure 16
In accordance with the State Council's institutional reform plan adopted at the first session of the Thirteenth National People's Congress, in order to further strengthen the supervision of the financial industry and rectify and supervise the banking and insurance industries, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission was established to establish and improve the linkage mechanism of supervision and control, improve the modern financial supervision system, and truly ensure that civil servants in the financial field "do not dare to be corrupt, cannot be corrupt, and do not want to be corrupt", and truly create a clean and honest financial environment.
Resources
"Zero Tolerance" - CCTV
"Advantages of Professional Achievements - Dialogue with Sun Deshun, President of Bank of Communications Beijing Branch" - "High-end Dialogue" Han Yingtong