Family members quizzed over huge hoard of cash
Print Edition
SEVEN relatives of a former water boss found with huge amounts of cash and gold at his home have been detained for questioning.
Cash worth 120 million yuan (US$19.58 million), 37 kilograms of gold worth almost 84.36 million yuan and 68 real estate certificates were found when Ma Chaoqun was detained.
Ma had been in charge of water supplies in Qinhuangdao’s Beidaihe District in north China’s Hebei Province.
He was arrested on April 15 on bribery charges. About six weeks later his brother Ma Chongqun, also a water company employee, was arrested on the same charge, China Youth Daily reported.
The brothers’ downfall has now led to the detention of another six family members, including Ma Chaoqun’s wife and daughter. Most are suspected of taking bribes and covering up money while Ma Chaoqun’s sister Ma Qingru is suspected of illegally possessing guns, the paper said.
Ma Chaoqun’s mother Zhang Guiying told the newspaper that the cash and gold, some of which was in a cloakroom at her home, had been earned by her husband Ma Bingzhong, before he died in 2012.
He was a doctor when they got married in 1966 but had a keen sense of how to make money, she said. He had invested in a mine which was later sold for 60 million yuan. He was also engaged in business of the sewing machines and engines.
“He availed himself of every opportunity to earn money,” Zhang said.
She said her husband kept all his money at home so he could act like a bank and lend money at high interest rates. As for the real estate certificates, most were in her and her husband’s name or that of Ma Qingru. Only one house, in Qinhuangdao, belonged to Ma Chaoqun and it was one she had bought.
However, a prosecutor, who refused to give his name, told the newspaper the haul had nothing to do with Ma Bingzhong, but declined to give more details.
Relatives told reporters Ma Chaoqun was being investigated because he had sought to report the alleged corruption of Ma Zhuang, director of the Qinhuangdao Urban Management Bureau. But the family conceded that no reports had been handed to authorities.
Xinhua new agency had a different story, saying Ma Chaoqun had come to the authorities’ attention after he had asked for bribes from a high-end hotel, negotiations that were recorded and sent to the authorities.
An unnamed official quoted by Xinhua said: “Ma dares to take money from everyone and from everywhere. No money, no water. He will also suspend water supply if the fee is deemed too low.”
Another source told Xinhua that Ma’s acts had stirred public resentment. Even government departments had to pay extra for access to water.
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