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November 4, 2016

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鈥楽ky Net鈥 fugitives facing justice

SHANGHAI prosecutors have captured or concluded investigations into 16 suspects wanted in the “Sky Net” anti-graft campaign, started in April 2015, to repatriate fugitive officials, according to Shanghai People’s Procuratorate yesterday.

Prosecutors said the cases involved more than 15 million yuan (US$2.2 million). The “Sky Net” operation was launched by the Chinese government.

Half of the suspects sought by Shanghai had fled abroad — three of them to the United States, and one each to Canada, Australia, Thailand, Japan and Singapore, prosecutors said.

Three of the 16 had been at large for more than 10 years.

The suspect who had escaped for the longest period was Wang Guoqiang, prosecutors said. He was accused of stealing 3.2 million yuan during 1996, while employed as an assistant to a department director at a branch of the Agricultural Bank of China in Songjiang District.

He is also reported to have fled to south China’s Guangdong Province where he lived until being detained by police in July last year.

Prosecutors said another of the 16 suspects, Gu Zhenfang, had been tagged with an Interpol “red notice” that named 100 people from China wanted for their involvement in serious corruption-related cases, all of whom had fled overseas.

Gu is alleged to have fled to Thailand in 2000 after stealing 920,000 yuan when she was a teller of the Wujing Branch of Shanghai Maritime Bureau. She died in 2006.

Another suspect on the “red notice” list is being investigated for corruption by prosecutors of Huangpu District.

There are further 21 fugitive officials who have fled overseas wanted by Shanghai prosecutors. The US, Canada and Australia were the favored destinations for this group, prosecutors said.

So far, China has netted 35 on the 100 “red notice” list.

More than half of them have lived overseas for five years, most of them fleeing to developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to China’s top anti-graft body.


 

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