Home » Feature » News Feature
Australia helps catch China’s most wanted
Print Edition
GAO Yan, former head of China’s State Electric Power Corp, the world’s largest utility company, has been named as a key target in an unprecedented joint collaboration between China and Australia aimed at catching corrupt Chinese officials and seizing their illegal assets, The Australian newspaper reported.
The 62-year-old, governor of Jilin Province and Party secretary in Yunnan Province in the early and mid-1990s, disappeared from view in 2002 after four years as general manager of the power company.
The Australian said his ownership of key electricity distribution assets in Australia, including stakes in SP AusNet, Jemena and Electranet, would have been a major consideration when Gao was deciding where to run to.
Earlier this year, China’s Lanzhou Evening News said Gao had helped his son, Gao Xinyuan, win corporation projects despite a ban on officials taking advantage of their position to help their relatives.
It claimed Gao would promote officials who proposed to give contracts to his son while dismissing those who refused.
It said that due to his father’s support, Gao Xinyuan had been granted contracts worth nearly 300 million yuan (US$49.18 million) which he later subcontracted after accepting bribes worth 10.8 million yuan and US$50,000.
Gao Yan gave other relatives contracts for 18 projects worth more than 500 million yuan, according to the newspaper.
It claimed Gao’s corruption dated from 1995 after he became Party chief of Yunnan, a province known for its tobacco industry.
In 1996, a Hong Kong company manager made nearly HK$9.6 million (US$1.24 million) profit after Gao told Chu Shijian, then an executive with tobacco company Hongta Group, to support the manager’s business. To thank Gao, the manager gave him US$20,000, it reported.
The 85-year-old Chu is known as China’s “tobacco king” because he turned a struggling tobacco firm into the country’s largest and most profitable cigarette producer. But in 1999, he was jailed for life for corruption and possession of huge assets from unknown sources.
After Chu’s downfall, Gao turned to other senior officials in the Hongta Group.
In one deal, he had asked his secretary to buy 7,500 boxes of cigarettes to be sold in Hong Kong, from which he earned HK$1.8 million, it reported.
During his term in Yunnan, Gao kept TV anchor Yang Shan as his mistress for several years, the newspaper said.
Between 1999 and 2001, he flew to Shanghai many times. He claimed he was seeing doctors but actually he was staying with Yang in luxury hotels. He asked a corporation subsidiary company to foot the bill to the sum of nearly 840,000 yuan, it reported.
He siphoned off other 3 million yuan from the subsidiary to decorate a 6.5-million-yuan villa in Shanghai and also spent 2.93 million yuan buying a luxury apartment in the city, it said.
Gao gave her four expensive cars and large amounts of cash, it reported, and her bank accountant in Hong Kong showed Gao had sent her US$100,000 yuan.
Gao was expelled from the Party and public office in November 2013 for severe violations to Party discipline and laws.
He is among seven senior officials or executives of state-owned enterprises hiding in Australia who were named in a recent issue of Chinese business magazine Caijing.
They include Lan Pu, former deputy mayor of Xiamen in Fujian Province, and Tong Yanbai, former executive of the state-owned highway development company in Henan Province.
Collectively, the seven officials are accused of bribery and embezzlement involving a total of about US$1 billion, according to the magazine.
Earlier this week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australian police had agreed to assist China in the extradition and seizure of assets of corrupt Chinese officials.
The report revealed that the Ministry of Public Security and the Australian Federal Police have agreed on a priority list of alleged economic fugitives who had taken residence in Australia. But the list remains secret to the public.
“Among the suspects identified by the Australian Federal Police are naturalized Australian citizens and permanent residents who for years have laundered money under the guise of being investment or business migrants from China,” the paper reported.
“They don’t all of a sudden leave overnight and take a bag of money with them. In some cases they’re very carefully planned,” Commander Bruce Hill, manager of the AFP’s operations in Asia, said in an interview with Fairfax Media.
He pointed out a typical scenario in which Chinese officials send their spouses and children overseas to shift assets offshore and then join them at the first sign of trouble back home.
“As time goes on, they start to put (their funds) into legitimate assets such as houses and property and shares and bank accounts and then the money becomes their wealth,” Hill said.
“But it’s never been their money to start with in the first place; it’s corrupt money flowing out of China,” he added.
Australia has become a popular shelter for disgraced officials because it doesn’t have a extradition treaty with China. Other popular destinations include the US and Canada.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing this week that China welcomed Australia’s help in cracking down on corruption.
China had signed treaties related to judicial assistance with 63 countries, including Australia, by September, Hua said, and she hoped more countries would follow Australia’s example.
On October 10, the Ministry of Public Security urged corrupt Chinese officials and economic suspects who have fled overseas to hand themselves over to police with the promise of leniency.
In the statement, the ministry said Chinese police had seized 128 fugitives in an international manhunt since July 22, when a crackdown called “Fox Hunt” was launched to block the last route of retreat for corrupt officials.
The suspects were caught from more than 40 countries and regions, it said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
