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Bloomberg
China’s former top internet regulator was sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption, completing the downfall of a once-high-flying official who mingled with executives from Apple Inc and Facebook Inc.
Lu Wei was found guilty of taking bribes on Tuesday by the Ningbo People’s Intermediate Court in the eastern province of Zhejiang, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
He was found to have accepted $4.6 million from companies and individuals seeking help with regulatory issues and promoting their businesses online, the report said.
Lu was convicted after a one-day trial in October. He told the court that he would obey the sentence and not appeal, Xinhua said.
The former Beijing propaganda official was named as China’s first national internet regulator in 2014 after the country established the Cyberspace Administration of China to manage a market that now has more than 800 million users. Lu spearheaded Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “Clear Cyberspace†campaign, purging “unhealthy†online content, reining in news portals and muzzling opinion leaders.