GUANGZHOU: Five people who operated an illegal bank that handled billions of yuan in money transfers have been sentenced to jail, a local district court said on Friday.

The Shenzhen bank was allegedly run by To Ling, a Hong Kong woman, originally from Qingyuan city, Guangdong.

The bank had branches in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and handled more than 4.3 billion yuan ($632 million) in money transfers between 2006 and May of last year.