Cover Story: Record River of Graft Leads to Death Penalty for One-Time Water Official

In a nation of superlatives when it comes to the scale of just about everything, now one former official in North China’s Inner Mongolia can add his dubious achievement to the list: a staggering 3 billion yuan ($420 million) in misappropriated funds and accepted bribes, the biggest haul from graft by an individual in the country’s history, according to Caixin calculations based on publicly available information.