The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) opens a website to allow people to tip off the CCDI to corruption and other disciplinary violations. [Photo/IC]

China ramps up international manhunt as nationwide anti-graft campaign continues

Ninety-one people suspected of corruption have been repatriated to China since October last year.

They have allegedly been involved in cases worth 776 million yuan ($122 million), Cao Jianming, president of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said at a meeting of procurator-generals from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

In the middle of a nationwide anti-corruption campaign targeting both senior and low-level officials, China is ramping up its international manhunt of corrupt fugitive officials as well as businesspeople.

A multi-department operation, code-named Skynet, was staged by the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in March. Since then four ministries－the Central Organization Department of the CPC, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the People's Bank of China－have been making concerted efforts to bring the suspects back.

To facilitate the operation, a list of 100 most-wanted fugitives was published in April. The fugitives are subject to Interpol red notices, which appeal for the location and arrest of each wanted person, and ask member states to extradite them.

It includes a photo of each fugitive, their gender, former positions of employment, mainland personal identification number, the nations or regions to which they are suspected of escaping and their alleged crimes.

According to the CCDI, the names on the list were only a fraction of those targeted in its global hunt.

Among them, 40 of the fugitives fled to the United States, 26 to Canada, and five to Hong Kong; the rest went to New Zealand, Australia, Thailand and Singapore.

The operation, dubbed "Foxhunt" and staged by the Ministry of Public Security in July last year, has become a major part of Skynet.

According to statistics from the ministry, in the first nine months of the year, a total of 556 fugitives returned to China from 59 countries and regions. Most of them are suspected of graft and theft of public funds.

To cut the channels of money laundering for corrupt government officials and company executives, an official with the CCDI who refused to be identified said it will target underground banks and break up more money laundering gangs in the next couple of months.