On December 10, 2025, the “Customs Tiger” of the Chinese Communist Party, Sun Yuning, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for accepting bribes exceeding 50.72 million Chinese yuan. Last September, Sun Yuning was investigated while in office, and shortly after, his superior, the then Director of the General Administration of Customs, Yu Jianhua, died suddenly. It was rumored that he was connected to Sun’s case, and he committed suicide after being interviewed by disciplinary officials.
On December 10, the Intermediate People’s Court of Hefei City, Anhui Province, publicly pronounced its first-instance verdict. Sun Yuning, former member of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the General Administration of Customs, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for bribery and fined 4 million yuan.
On September 24, 2024, Sun Yuning was officially arrested, becoming one of the highest-ranking officials in the customs system to fall from grace in recent years. In March of this year, he was expelled from the Party and transferred to the judiciary. At that time, reports stated that Sun Yuning violated regulations by frequenting private clubs, engaging in money-for-sex transactions, and corruptly using his public power for personal gain, unlawfully accepting huge amounts of money.
It is worth noting that less than three months after Sun Yuning’s downfall, Yu Jianhua, the then Director of the General Administration of Customs, suddenly passed away on December 10, 2024, due to a “sudden illness that was untreatable.” According to official media reports, on December 10, 2024, Jilin Provincial Party Secretary Huang Qiang and Vice Party Secretary and Governor Hu Yuting held a working meeting in Beijing with Yu Jianhua, the Director and Party Secretary of the General Administration of Customs. The following day, this news report was taken down.
At the time, independent commentator Cai Shenkun revealed on an online platform that on the evening of December 10, 2024, Yu Jianhua, Director of the General Administration of Customs, committed suicide in his office after being interviewed by disciplinary officials the day before. Numerous online rumors also suggested that Yu Jianhua shot himself, related to the case of Sun Yuning, the Deputy Director of the General Administration of Customs who was arrested in September 2024.
Public records show that Sun Yuning was born in July 1965 in Shulan, Jilin. He started working at Changchun Customs in 1995 and became Deputy Director (Deputy Bureau-level) and member of the Party Committee in August 2004. He later served as the Director of Manzhouli Customs, Zhengzhou Customs, and Dalian Customs. In October 2020, Sun Yuning was promoted to Deputy Director and member of the Party Committee of the General Administration of Customs, until he was investigated in September 2024.