There are economic crimes in China that carry the death penalty--most of them having to do with defrauding banks. The history of Chinese people making runs on the banks for the slightest twinge of panic is about as long as the history of Chinese banking (which is nowhere near as long as the history of Chinese industry), so the Chinese government takes any attack on the Chinese economic system very seriously.
Anyway, there are several economic crimes that, if you commit them in China, will result in you getting executed.
Let me introduce you to Anthony Allen, the Scum of the Earth. This is a man who really deserves to be taken out back and shot.
http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article?id=222428Mr. Allen didn't do much...he just defrauded 150-plus senior citizens out of between $15 million and $20 million of their retirement savings. Where did it go? Even the bank isn't sure--this guy spent his ill-gotten gains so fast that he incurred returned-check charges every month.
Allen copped a plea--guilty to 85 counts of obtaining property by false pretenses. Our prosecutor, Ed Grannis, is working to get him sentenced to 1900 years in prison. (They didn't do this for leniency, either...they estimate that a full-blown trial would take over a year.)
There needs to be something we can do with people like this.