When the labour services company noticed the salary had not been deposited into Sun’s account, Yang claimed the tech company had delayed payment.
Since 2014, he fabricated records for 22 fake employees, and pocketed salaries and severance pay totalling 16 million yuan. The ghost employees’ individual salaries were not disclosed.
In 2022, the tech company’s finance department noticed that Sun had perfect attendance and received timely salaries, but no one had ever seen him in the office.
The matter was reported to the authorities.
An investigation into attendance records and bank transactions revealed Yang’s eight-year ghost employee scam.
Yang was eventually sentenced to 10 years and two months in prison for embezzlement, stripped of political rights for one year, and fined. He was also ordered to return 1.1 million yuan in stolen funds, with his family returning an additional 1.2 million yuan.
