Wu Ying, once a highly successful businesswoman, has lodged an appeal against her conviction for fraud, her father said yesterday.

Documents were mailed to the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Higher People's Court of Zhejiang Province on Wednesday, Wu Yongzheng told the Xinhua news agency.

Wu Ying, 32, was found guilty of cheating investors out of 380 million yuan (US$60.2 million) between May 2005 and January 2007 in private lending scams.

Last May, Wu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in east China's Zhejiang Province. She was found to have raised 770 million yuan by promising high interest rates, and at the time of her arrest she still owed investors 380 million yuan.

Wu said in her appeal that she invested most of the money in property and businesses which were operating well, yesterday's National Business Daily reported. She said there was no doubt she could repay investors.

Wu also said the courts had previously undervalued her assets when they decided she was worth just 171.6 million yuan.

She denied having illegally raised funds or lured others to lend her money. The practice of promising high interest rates to private creditors was widely accepted in Zhejiang, she said, adding: "I never cajoled anyone."

In May, the Zhejiang Higher People's Court found that Wu had deliberately concealed her business profits. Wu denied this was the case and had sent related documents to the court.

Wu's story, before her conviction, was one of rags to riches. Her formal education ended after primary school but she later built up a multimillion-dollar business in three years after starting with a single beauty salon.

In 2006, Wu, former owner of Zhejiang-based Bense Holding Group, was the sixth richest woman on China's mainland with personal assets of 3.6 billion yuan.

In December 2009, she was sentenced to death by the Jinhua Intermediate People's Court for fraud, and the Zhejiang provincial court upheld the verdict on January 18, 2012.

On April 20, 2012, the Supreme People's Court sent the case back to the court for re-sentencing. Wu was granted the two-year reprieve.