(Yicai Global) April 14 -- Chinese regulators have banned Jia Yueting, founder of video-streaming platform operator Leshi Internet Information and Technology, and the firm’s former chief financial officer from the securities market for life because of financial fraud committed for almost a decade from 2007.

Jia and Yang Lijie played a role in leading, planning, organizing, and implementing Leshi’s financial fraud and must be held directly responsible for it, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement yesterday.

The ban prohibits Jia and Yang from doing any securities business at any institution and from serving as directors, supervisors, or senior managers at any listed or unlisted companies in the country, the CSRC said.

The day before, the CSRC had handed Jia, a serial entrepreneur who also set up US electric carmaker Faraday Future, a fine of CNY241 million (USD36.8 million). It fined Beijing-based Leshi, once known as ‘China's Netflix,’ CNY240.6 million.

The watchdog also banned three other former senior Leshi executives from the securities market for periods ranging from eight to 10 years.

To escape mounting debts in 2017, after ranking 37th in the Forbes China Rich List the previous year, Jia fled China for the United States, where he had founded Faraday Future. The California-based automaker filed for an initial public offering last week and is expected to go public on the Nasdaq next month.

Faraday Future’s first vehicle, the FF91, is scheduled for release about 12 months after the IPO, the firm has said. The model will be made at its Hanford plant in California.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi