China has beefed up a global manhunt operation targeting suspects of duty-related crimes including taking bribes who have fled abroad.
As part of a fugitive-hunting campaign codenamed "Sky Net 2020," the hunt for duty crime suspects was launched by the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) and will last from April to December this year.
The operation will focus on most-wanted fugitives listed on an Interpol Red Notice, suspects who had been made public in 2017 and 2018 by Chinese authorities, and corrupt officials who engaged in duty crime cases and fled within the past five years, said the commission.
Others among the target are corrupt fugitives from state-owned enterprises and those from the sectors of finance and poverty alleviation.
Discipline inspection and supervision organs will make full use of legal means, including the confiscation of illegal gains to recover ill-gotten assets by fugitives from abroad.
Meanwhile, China will cooperate with other countries and international organizations to uncover, freeze, confiscate and return unlawful gains, the commission added.
Moreover, law enforcement departments will publicize information about fugitives through media for public tip-offs.
This year's hunt for suspects of duty-related crimes is the second of its kind. In the 2019 operation, 969 fugitives suspected of duty-related crimes, including 16 listed on the Interpol Red Notice, were returned to China, with more than 2.4 billion yuan (around 340.9 million U.S. dollars) of illicit money recovered.
The "Sky Net 2020" campaign was initiated in late March. Under a unified arrangement, the NSC is in charge of hunting down fugitive duty-related crime suspects, the Supreme People's Court pursuing illicit assets of hidden or dead suspects and defendants, and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) hunting for suspects of economic crimes.
The People's Bank of China and the MPS are responsible for preventing and cracking down on the transfer of illicit money to overseas accounts. The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the MPS and other departments deal with the suspects' illegal acquisition of travel documents.
