A former general manager of a local investment company who cheated investors out of nearly 100 million yuan (US$15 million) has been sentenced to three years behind bars for illegal public savings pooling.

Jing’an District People’s Court, said the defendant, surnamed Li, and sales agents at his firm Yuetong, promised clients high yields on their investments, with annualized returns hitting 15 percent.

From January 2015 to July 2016, Li and his sales team collected more than 97 million yuan of public deposits, investigation showed.

However, last summer it emerged that investors had lost all their money.

As Li had admitted guilt and returned ill-gotten gains, he was granted a lighter sentence, the court said. He was also fined 100,000 yuan.