China brings home 500 economic fugitives on run in anti-graft crackdown

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China brings home 500 economic fugitives on run in anti-graft crackdown

Billions of yuan in illegally gained assets seized from corrupt officials on the run

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 08 January, 2015, 3:40am
UPDATED : Thursday, 08 January, 2015, 3:40am

Keira Lu Huang [email protected]

CCDI deputy director Huang Shuxian (centre) says China's graft-busters would push on with the anti-corruption mission overseas. Photo: Xinhua

More than 500 fugitives abroad were brought back to China to face the music by the end of last year, along with over 3 billion yuan (HK$3.8 billion) obtained by illegal means, the country's top graft-buster has said.

"The central anti-graft coordinating team has set up an office to seize fugitives … and to find out the number of Communist Party members and officials who have fled overseas," Huang Shuxian, deputy director of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said yesterday.

Huang said China's graft-busters would push on with the anti-corruption mission overseas and continue to cooperate with the United States, Canada and Australia - three popular destinations for corrupt Chinese officials who fled the country.

Beijing launched "Operation Fox Hunt" in July to pursue such officials and other economic criminals at large overseas. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, it urged Apec members to sign an anti-graft declaration for international cooperation in bringing back such fugitives and their illegally obtained assets.

Over the past year, the CCDI has investigated 68 party cadres of at least provincial ranking, including former security tsar Zhou Yongkang , former presidential aide Ling Jihua and a handful of officials from Shanxi province.

Huang said Shanxi's party committee and its related departments would be held responsible for the province's corruption crisis. His mention of Shanxi yesterday - almost a year after its first high-ranking official came under investigation for corruption - sparked speculation about how the provincial party committee would be made to take responsibility for the crisis.

"To have the party committee take the responsibility ultimately means that individuals will have to bear the responsibility," Peking University anti-graft expert Zhuang Deshui said. "The committee leader is the primary responsibility holder."

Former Shanxi party boss Yuan Chunqing was transferred to lead an agriculture team in the central government after the CCDI detained half of his colleagues in the committee.

"It's worth watching if Yuan will get disciplinary punishment from the party," Zhuang said.