【英语中国】中国“房姐”龚爱爱获刑三年

A Chinese banking official who allegedly resorted to forgery to amass a fortune in apartments in a nation where many can't afford a single residence, will spend the next three years in jail, a court ruled on Sunday.

Gong Aiai, a 49-year-old former deputy head of Shenmu County Rural Commercial Bank in the city of Yulin in Shaanxi province, illegally purchased and forged identification documents to help build a portfolio of at least 44 apartments worth 395 million yuan (around $65 million), the official Xinhua news agency reported.

'The court ruled that [Ms.] Gong had violated the household registration system and disturbed social order,' Xinhua reported.

By designating her property-buying activity as illegal, the court left little doubt that Ms. Gong is likely to lose claim to a chunk of her assets.

Ms. Gong had claimed in her trial that her money was legitimately earned in the coal-mining business and that she had borrowed money from friends.

The case of 'Sister House,' as Internet users dubbed Ms. Gong, highlighted the sometimes immense wealth hidden from view in China. The amounts of money involved in Ms. Gong's case raised questions about how it could have been amassed by a small-time banker from a tiny hamlet. Her ability to get around China's basic system of tracking its population with residency-registration IDs, known as hukou, pointed to cracks in the almost 30-year-old system.

Her downfall also put Ms. Gong into increasingly familiar territory in China, where Internet criticism sometimes sparks an official investigation and criminal charges for those targeted. One official's penchant for expensive wristware, for instance, earned him the name 'Brother Watch' and police corruption allegations.

The court heard testimony that Ms. Gong paid 300,000 yuan to buy Beijing residency-registration cards for herself and her daughter in 2005. She later forged ID cards with other names, the court said.

In an effort to clamp down on real estate speculation in the capital, where housing prices rival those in major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, authorities passed new rules in 2011 that required nonresidents to pay local taxes and social-security fees for five years in order to purchase a home. Nonresidents are also limited to buying only one home, whereas holders of Beijing resident permits are allowed two.

The new rules have not only failed to keep housing prices from rising but have also led to skyrocketing rents, fueling resentment among the city's working- and middle-class residents.

In a busy few weeks of dramatic cases in Chinese courts, Ms. Gong's three-year sentence is comparatively mild. Former Chongqing Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai was handed down a life sentence on Sept. 22 in a case of corruption and abuse of power. Yang Dacai, the watch-wearing official, was on Sept. 5 jailed for 14 years on charges of accepting bribes. State media reported he confessed at the trial to having fallen into the 'abyss of criminality.'

一位中国银行业官员被指通过伪造文书的手段聚敛了众多房产，而这个国家有很多人连一套房都买不起。一家法院周日判处此人三年有期徒刑。

官方媒体新华社报道说， 西省榆林市神木县农村商业银行副行长、现年49岁的龚爱爱非法购买及伪造身份证件，借以积累了至少44套房产，价值人民币3.95亿元（约6,500万美元）。

新华社的报道说，法院判定，龚爱爱的行为破坏了国家户籍管理制度，扰乱了社会管理秩序。

法院将龚爱爱的房产购买活动定为非法，因此龚爱爱无疑很有可能失去大部分资产。

龚爱爱在庭审中说，她的钱都是在煤矿开采业务中合法赚取的，还有一些是跟朋友借的。

龚爱爱被网民称为“房姐”。这起案件突显出在中国有时不为人知的巨大财富。龚爱爱案件中涉及的巨额资金引发人们质疑：一个无足轻重的小镇银行官员是如何聚敛这么多的财富？她能够绕过中国基本的人口居住登记制度，即户口制度，这一事实也表明了已有数十年历史的户口制度的漏洞。

龚爱爱的身败名裂也反映出中国一个越来越普遍的现象，即互联网上的批评有时会引发官方对于被批评者的调查以及刑事指控。比如说，一名官员对昂贵手表的嗜好让他获得了“表哥”的外号，并引发了警方的腐败指控。

法院听取的证词说，龚爱爱在2005年支付人民币30万元为其本人及其女儿购买北京市户籍。法院说，她后来伪造了其他名字的身份证件。

为了打击首都北京的房地产投机活动，有关当局在2011年通过新规定，要求非北京市居民交纳五年的地方税和社保费用才能购房。非北京市居民还被限制只能购买一套房屋，而持有北京市居住许可者可购买两套。北京的房价堪比纽约和洛杉矶等美国大城市。

新规不仅未能阻止房价上涨，还导致租金飞涨，引发北京劳动阶层和中产阶级居民的不满。

中国法院最近几周忙于一系列引人注目的案件，这其中龚爱爱的三年有期徒刑相对较轻。9月22日，前重庆市委书记薄熙来因腐败和滥用职权被判无期徒刑。“表哥”杨达才于9月5日因收受贿赂被判14年有期徒刑。国有媒体报道说，他在法庭上承认坠入了犯罪深渊。