Anti-graft net recovers assets, too
Official says return of ill-gotten gains is just as important as bringing back economic fugitives
While China is seeing an increasing number of fugitives suspected of corruption being returned from overseas, thanks to international cooperation, the country is also beefing up efforts to recover their ill-gotten assets.
Between January 2014 and November this year, 2,442 Chinese fugitives suspected of economic crimes, including 397 officials, were brought back from more than 70 countries and regions, according to the Communist Party of China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country’s top anti-graft watchdog.
In the same period, 8.54 billion yuan ($1.24 billion) in illegal assets was recovered, according to the CCDI.
“Getting these illicit assets is just as important as bringing the fugitives back,” Liu Jianchao, director of the CCDI’s International Cooperation Bureau, said in an interview ahead of this year’s International Anti-Corruption Day, which falls on Friday.
“Hunting the fugitives is to make them face judicial punishment. Recovering the money is to stop them from enjoying the dividend of escape and to minimize the loss to the country and the people,” Liu said.
He acknowledged that China faces some challenges in recovering the illicit assets, such as the lack of a clear understanding of outflow channels and insufficient international agreements for such recovery.
director of the CCDI’s International Cooperation Bureau
He said that China will enhance intelligence sharing with other countries and try to offer them as much evidence as possible, including the channels of outflow for and whereabouts of the assets, in requesting judicial assistance and to help investigators.
So far, China has signed bilateral agreements with financial institutions in 42