A Chinese billionaire serving 14 years in prison for bribery and insider trading is the new owner of a $41.5 million Upper East Side mansion that sold earlier this week.
Huang Guangyu and his wife, Lisa Du Juan, bought the townhouse at 7 East 76th Street this week for just under $3,000 a foot, according to the New York Post. The seller was Japanese billionaire Bungo Shimada, as The Real Deal reported earlier this week.
“[Huang] is kind of like the Al Capone of China, running his business from behind bars,” a source told the Post.
Born in southern China, Huang built a massive electronics empire, Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd., before moving into Chinese real estate. He was China’s richest person in 2006 and 2007, according to Forbes.
In 2008, he was arrested on suspicion of fraud and a Hong Kong court froze assets belonging to his company the following year. He was sentenced to prison in 2010.
Shimada originally listed the 14,000-square-foot home for $50 million, and relisted it for $45 million in January with Stan Ponte and Max Collins of Sotheby’s International Realty.
Known as the Clarence Whitman Mansion, the property is 24.5 feet wide and has seven bedrooms, two terraces and a rectangular staircase. It also has several secret passageways, including a secret door in the library that leads to a card room and a hidden entrance on the floor of a coat closet that goes to the basement. [NYP] — E.B. Solomont