Bribery tops the list of wrongdoings that has seen some of China's richest people arrested on criminal charges, a report showed yesterday.

Among 1,882 entrepreneurs who have appeared on the Hurun Rich List in the past 12 years, 24 have been jailed or are in custody, a Hurun report revealed yesterday.

On average, they were 40 years old when alleged illegal activities were exposed.

Eighteen are currently serving jail sentences, and two have been released after completing their terms. Four people are in custody awaiting verdicts.

Bribery was the major charge brought against them, followed by other crimes all related to the capital market, including fraud, swindling and tax evasion.

Nande Group founder Mou Qizhong and Minglun Group Chairman Zhou Yiming are serving life sentences in jail. The average term of imprisonment of the remainder of those jailed is 11 years, the report said.

The four currently in custody include the founder of furniture maker Guangming Group Feng Yongming, who was arrested in 2008 in Yichun in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province for allegedly embezzling 800 million yuan (US$121 million).

Nine of the disgraced were in property, four in infrastructure construction, and two were involved in retail and home appliances businesses.

Jailed founder of Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Huang Guangyu was the richest of them. He was 21st on the rich list in 2010 with assets of 24 billion yuan (US$3.64 billion).

Also on the rich list was Zhang Rongkun, the construction tycoon involved in Shanghai's pension fund scandal.

Among other entrepreneurs who have featured on the rich list, 21 have faced or are facing investigation, or their whereabouts are unknown.

Former CITIC Pacific Chairman Larry Yung is being investigated by the Hong Kong securities watchdog for foreign exchange option fraud. Yung topped the rich list in 2002. He resigned in April 2009 after losing more than HK$808 million (US$104 million) in a forward exchange contract.

Yang Rong, former chairman of Huachen Auto Group, is said to have fled to the United States after being allegedly linked with economic crimes in 2002.