BEIJING — Hui Ka Yan, the founder of the Evergrande real estate group, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Shenzhen. The court also imposed fines totaling $2.3 billion on the companies.

This decision is a significant development in Evergrande’s ongoing saga. The company collapsed under liabilities exceeding $300 billion after Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing in the real estate sector in 2020. This crackdown triggered financial difficulties for many developers and contributed to a prolonged downturn in the property market, affecting the broader Chinese economy.

The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court found Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, guilty of orchestrating large-scale financial fraud by inflating the company’s assets and concealing its liabilities. He was accused of abusing his position to commit financial fraud and misappropriate company assets.

Several senior Evergrande executives also received prison sentences of up to 18 years for crimes including illegal public deposit acceptance and fraud, according to the court statement.

The fines against Evergrande group were 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion), and Evergrande Real Estate Group incurred fines amounting to 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion).

Hui admitted guilt in April to charges of illegal absorption of public deposits, fraud, and bribery following his arrest in China.

China Evergrande was established in 1996. Before defaulting on its debts in 2021, it was the world’s most indebted real estate developer, leading to a forced liquidation of its assets.

Authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China discovered that Evergrande had manipulated financial data. Tactics included reporting revenue from property sales before the completion and delivery of apartments, resulting in an overstatement of revenues by approximately $80 billion during 2019 and 2020.