Founder of China’s Fanya Metals Exchange Sentenced to 18 Years for Corruption

People protest outside the office of China's top anti-graft agency complaining they were tricked by Fanya Metals Exchange. Chinese investors who claim to have lost money on risky investments mounted a rare protest in Beijing on Sept. 22, 2015. Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

BEIJING/SHANGHAI—A Chinese court on March 22 fined the firm behind the now-defunct Fanya Nonferrous Metals Exchange 1 billion yuan ($149.04 million) for illegal fundraising and handed its founder a lengthy prison term, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The Kunming Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Shan Jiuliang, who founded and ran the minor metals bourse, to 18 years in prison for crimes including embezzlement, according to a Xinhua report carried on the court’s website.