Guo Meimei: my vanity sullied Red Cross

Police accuse infamous showboat of gambling, prostitution

Guo Meimei, the 23-year-old woman who dragged the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) into a credibility crisis three years ago, admitted recently that the society had nothing to do with either her or the Zhonghong Bo'ai Company, the Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

Guo made the confession as a criminal suspect in a detention center in Beijing over accusations of online World Cup gambling. She confessed that she had participated in gambling and had arranged gambling events for a long time.

The Dongcheng branch of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau detained the woman for being involved in gambling on July 14 after the police caught an eight-member group participating in an online World Cup gambling event on July 9.

According to police, Guo opened a gambling house in Beijing with a foreign gambler in 2013, and invited people to visit to gamble. Each time Guo would get a return of 3 to 5 percent of the gambling fund, which meant she received tens of thousands of yuan from the over-million-yuan fund.

Also, the police found that Guo had helped a Macanese man surnamed Kit to promote his website by spreading fake messages, saying Guo owed a gambling debt of 260 million yuan ($42 million). In return, Guo received 400,000 yuan in gambling chips.

The police also found that Guo, who told the police she earned money through commercial performances, had actually conducted a sex trade disguised as performances. In a deal in July 2013, Guo charged HK$460,000 ($59,340) for a night with a man from Guangdong Province, police said.

Guo confessed that this is not the first time she had lied. She admitted dragging the RCSC into a corruption scandal in 2011.

Guo said that her identity as the "general manager of the Red Cross Chamber of Commerce" was fake, and she claimed this because of ignorance.

"I posted this on Weibo because of vanity, and I was so innocent that I didn't know the Red Cross was such a big charity organization," said Guo.

According to Xinhua, the key figure of the RCSC scandal - whose name was reportedly Wang Jun - was detained on July 24 by police in Beijing. Wang confessed that he had had a sexual relationship with Guo at the time and invested in the Zhonghong Bo'ai Company. The company was launching a project with the Commerce Sector Red Cross, an organization affiliated with the RCSC, and Guo wanted to be the CEO of the company.

Guo called Wang her "nominal father" in her Weibo post in 2011, saying her wealth was from him.