On its front page today, the New Express newspaper, a spin-off of Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News, reports figures released by an enforcement division of China’s central bank showing that since the mid-1990s an estimated 16-18,000 Party, government, police and state-owned enterprise officials from China have disappeared overseas with approximately 800 billion yuan, or roughly 123.6 billion US dollars.
This news was first reported yesterday by Beijing Youth Daily reporter Cheng Jie (程婕), in a piece re-posted widely across the internet [HERE too].
The basis for the reports from Beijing Youth Daily and the New Express is a document released on the internet by the Anti-Money Laundering Bureau (Security Bureau) of the People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank. The report is called, “Research on the Channels and Detection Methods for the Transfer Overseas of Asset by Corrupt Elements in Our Country” (我国腐败分子向境外转移资产的途径及监测方法研究).


[ABOVE: The front page of today’s New Express with a large headline reading: “More than 10,000 Corrupt Officials Steal Away 800 Billion Yuan”.]
The media reports specify the eight primary methods by which officials managed to sneak assets overseas, and also mention which economic sectors are most vulnerable (the financial sector and state monopoly enterprises top the list).
[Frontpage image by “cogdobblog” posted to Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]


David Bandurski

CMP Director

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