A court in the Chinese city of Chongqing convicted 18 people of smuggling almost $10 billion through illegal bank transfers, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a lawyer involved in the case.

The group used fake electronics companies and bank accounts to help clients evade capital controls, the newspaper said, citing prosecutors it didn’t name. The ringleader, a 36-year-old former electronics saleswoman, was sentenced to six years in prison and fined more than 3 million yuan ($470,000), according to an unnamed attorney cited by the Journal.

Two phone calls by Bloomberg News to the prosecutor’s office in Chongqing’s Jiulongpo district went unanswered. A woman who answered the phone at the research division of the district court said she couldn’t confirm the conviction unless a case number was supplied.

Local prosecutors charged 18 people with illegally moving 62 billion yuan through shell companies in 2007-2011, Xinhua reported in February.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Aipeng Soo in Beijing at asoo4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chitra Somayaji at csomayaji@bloomberg.net