China capture 49 fugitives

Forty-nine suspects with duty-related crimes have been brought back from 17 countries and regions, including the US, Canada and the UK to face trial, according to the Supreme People's Prosecutorate (SPP) on Monday.

Of those 49 suspects, the police captured 13 fugitives and persuaded 36 to return and to confess their crimes, the SPP said during a press briefing.

Since October, the SPP has initiated a six month campaign to nab officials who are still at large overseas, and confiscate their ill-gotten assets.

A majority of the fugitives were corrupt officials, including several senior officials with bureau-level positions and directors from State-owned enterprises. They are suspected of corruption and offering bribes, as well as other crimes, such as abusing their power to benefit others and accepting bribes, said Xu Jinhui, director of the SPP's Anti-corruption and Bribery Bureau.

He said that among the 49 suspects, the cases of 16 fugitives involved money valued at 1 million yuan, and four involved more than 10 million yuan.

In recent years, the US, Canada and Australia have become the big destinations for corrupt Chinese officials to flee. Many transfer ill-gotten proceeds through money laundering and underground banks due to the lack of signed bilateral extradition treaties and different legal procedures.

Figures released in a report by the People's Bank of China in 2011 showed that illicit funds transferred by corrupt officials exceeded 800 billion yuan, more than the annual revenue of the country's biggest telecommunications corporation.

"Such crimes have seriously hampered the progress of criminal lawsuits and damaged judicial fairness and justice," he said.

Xu said that China will enhance communication with the US, France, Canada and Australia to make a priority list of alleged corrupt officials in major cases and request their assistance to nab corrupt officials hiding in those countries.