Suspect held after 20 years on the run

Man wanted for allegedly cheating construction firm out of 3m yuan

Police have detained an economic-crimes suspect in Maoming, Guangdong province, two decades after the man fled abroad.

The suspect, surnamed Zhang, fled to Central America in October 1994 after heallegedly defrauded a local construction company out of more than 3 million yuan ($488,500). Zhang pretended to help the company build a villa project in the port city.

He was caught after he returned to Shenzhen on Sept 4. Zhang is not the only suspect wanted for such crimes to be apprehended in Guangdong recently.

Huang Shouying, director of the Economic Crime Investigation Bureau under the Guangdong Department of Public Security, said that as of Tuesday provincial police have detained nine economic-crime suspects who fled overseas from the province since a campaign code-named Liehu, or "fox hunting", was launched in July.

Police have also detained three suspects from other provinces and regions, he said.

"Guangdong was the first among the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the Chinese mainland to detain a number of economic-crime suspects who had escaped abroad in the past two and a half months," Huang said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Huang said the large number of such suspects from Guangdong is partly due to the province's large population, but he declined to reveal the exact number of suspects.

"The suspects who have escaped abroad are mainly involved in fraud, illegal fundraising and related economic crimes," he said.

Efforts will be made to improve intelligence gathering and analysis to track down these suspects, he said.

Police have offered rewards for tip-offs that help in the capture of such suspects, he added.

Police will also expand cooperation with their foreign counterparts in pursuing suspects who have fled abroad. On Friday, two suspects who escaped abroad after they were investigated for illegal fundraising were extradited to Guangdong from Malaysia.

Huang urged economic-crime suspects to return to the mainland and surrender to police for lenient treatment because authorities "will never give up their determination, nor reduce their vigilance, to pursue and capture suspects who have escaped abroad".