Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

China puts new focus on illicit assets in corruption fugitive hunt

BEIJING — China will step up efforts to recover stolen money taken overseas as part of its crackdown on corruption, state media said, after officials warned of the difficulty of tracking graft suspects and their illicit assets abroad.

BEIJING — China will step up efforts to recover stolen money taken overseas as part of its crackdown on corruption, state media said, after officials warned of the difficulty of tracking graft suspects and their illicit assets abroad.

“While the previous priority was collecting evidence in overseas manhunts, the recovery of assets acquired illegally in China will be a new anti-corruption initiative in the coming months,” the official English-language China Daily newspaper reported yesterday, citing an unnamed senior public security official.

The official said police will work with China’s central bank to crack down on officials who have transferred billions of yuan in illegal funds to foreign accounts through money laundering or underground banks.

“Several more fugitives will be extradited from Europe and South America in the near future,” the China Daily cited the official as saying.

Securing ill-gotten wealth from corrupt officials who have fled the country has been part of China’s multi-agency “Sky Net” campaign launched in 2014, though the authorities have especially touted the return of hundreds of fugitives.

Over the past two years, since setting up a team to chase graft suspects across the globe, the graft-busting Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has returned to China 1,915 people from more than 70 countries, along with 7.47 billion yuan (S$1.5 billion).

Beijing has also brought back 33 of those on its top 100 list of most-wanted corruption suspects who have fled overseas, the commission said earlier this month.

China has been seeking more international cooperation to hunt down suspected corrupt officials who have fled overseas since President Xi Jinping began a drive against deeply-rooted graft almost four years ago.

Western countries, however, have been reluctant to help, or to sign extradition treaties, not wanting to send people back to a country where rights groups say mistreatment of criminal suspects remains a problem. They also complain that China is unwilling to provide proof of their crimes.

China has instead turned to persuasion to get people back.

In April, Mr Huang Shuxian, deputy head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said that the task was “very difficult”.

China does not have extradition treaties with the United States, Australia or Canada, which according to state media are popular destinations for its suspected economic criminals.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday said Canada would stick to high standards when deciding whether to return Chinese citizens after the two countries agreed to start talks about an extradition treaty.

The New York Times reported yesterday the agreement for the treaty was signed on Sept 12 by Mr Daniel Jean, the Canadian national security adviser, and Mr Wang Yongqing, secretary-general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party.

It established short-term objectives that include allowing both countries to share the ill-gotten financial assets of suspected Chinese fugitives in Canada and completing negotiations on a one-year pilot project “where Chinese experts will be invited to assist in the verification of the identity of inadmissible persons from mainland China” to prepare for their repatriation. AGENCIES

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.