Businessman accuses local bureau of extortion

A chairman of a consulting company based in Beijing has accused officials from the local industrial and commercial bureau of attempted extortion after it had imposed a penalty on the company for illegal publications in 2011.

Jiang Ruxiang, chairman of the board of Beijing CN Enterprise Management Consultant Company, claimed via Sina microblog Friday that he has recorded evidence of officials "dropping hints" that if a bribe was offered, CN could escape a fine.　

According to the Beijing News, Anzhen administrative office for industry and commerce in Chaoyang district confiscated hundreds of books and audiovideo products from Jiang's company last year after they allegedly received a tip-off. The source of the tip-off was not named.

Jiang told the Beijing News that as his publications were research findings provided to customers or students, and not for sale in bookstores, they should not be illegal.　

The Beijing News reported that since March this year when CN started to negotiate with the Anzhen commerce office, Jiang continued to be informed to report the real amount of illegal gains from the books or deal with it "through the back door."

The Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce responded on its Sina microblog Saturday by saying that CN was suspected of being involved in unauthorized operations in books and audiovisual products.

"Some of the books have been confirmed to be illegal publications by authorities and this case had been put on record by the police department for further investigation," the announcement said.

The announcement also asked Jiang to contact them as soon as possible, to provide evidence of his allegations of extortion.

Jiang could not be reached after several attempts on Sunday.

Yue Shanshan, a lawyer from Yuecheng Law Firm, told the Global Times Sunday that books that have no legal book number (ISBN) can be regarded as illegal publications.

"However, if those books are used for training or internal communications, then they are not considered illegal publications. In this case, we need to know whether the books are really used for training or internal communications," Yue said.