(Yicai Global) Dec. 23 -- A court in China has sentenced the founders of Tuandai.Com, the country’s first licensed peer-to-peer lending platform, to 20 years each in prison and handed jail terms to 44 other people connected with the P2P lender, which collapsed more than three years ago.

Tang Jun, who was also the online payday lender’s chairman, was fined CNY51.5 million (USD7.4 million) as well, the listed arm of Paisheng Technology Group, which ran Tuandai, said in a statement yesterday. Zhang Lin, who was also Paisheng Technology’s ex-general manager, was fined CNY41 million.

The other 44 people received jail terms ranging from one and a half years to 15 years along with financial penalties.

The Dongguan Intermediate People’s Court handed them the sentences for committing or taking part in fundraising fraud, illegal absorption of public deposits, stock market manipulation, and forging invoices, including those for valued added tax.

The court additionally fined Dongguan-based Paisheng Technology about CNY1.6 billion (USD229 million) for illegal fundraising and stock market manipulation.

Founded in 2011, Tuandai.Com completed five financing rounds, raising over CNY2.5 billion in total, and accepted huge amounts of money from retail investors between 2012 and 2019, when it collapsed, failing to repay about CNY34.8 billion (USD5 billion), CCTV News reported yesterday.

During that time, the firm launched fundraising scams to garner about CNY32.6 billion, mainly using it to manipulate stock markets and for personal consumption. Moreover, some defendants issued fake invoices worth CNY67.6 million, as well as illegal value-added tax invoices of CNY1.4 million.

Tang still owns 1.54 percent of the listed firm, Paisheng Intelligent Technology, and has indirect stakes as Shuobo Investment Development, which is indirectly controlled by him, owns a nearly 23.6 percent holding in Paisheng Intelligent.

Before entering the P2P lending field, Paisheng Intelligent's main business was precision aluminum die casting. In 2017, Tang injected Tuandai's assets into Paisheng Intelligent, which prompted a sixfold increase in its share price from early 2017 to 2019. After that, Paisheng Intelligent returned to its main business.

Shares of Paisheng Intelligent [SHE: 300176] ended today unchanged at CNY5.98 (86 US cents) apiece. The stock has fallen 10.5 percent this year.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi