Illegal gains successfully seized from fugitives

Procuratorial organs nationwide have successfully confiscated illegal gains in 30 cases since 2018 involving corruption and bribery suspects who fled the country or died, said a senior prosecutor from the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Tuesday.

The illegal gains confiscated under the Criminal Procedure Law totaled 556 million yuan ($79.6 million), said Wang Shouan, head of the third procuratorial division of the SPP that focuses on duty crimes, adding that the confiscation of illegal gains plays an important role in the recovery of illicit overseas assets and punishing fugitive criminals.

Han Xiaofeng, deputy head of the third procuratorial division of the SPP, said confiscating illegal gains is conducive to cutting off the financial sources of criminals who escaped overseas and encourages them to return to China as soon as possible.

For corruption, bribery and other major duty crime cases, if suspects fled and cannot present themselves a year after being wanted, and if there is evidence to prove they committed the crimes, the people's procuratorate can apply to the people's court for the confiscation of their illegal gains, he said.

The procuratorate would also ask relevant countries for judicial cooperation involving the confiscation orders.

In one case, Li Huabo－former head of the economic construction division of Poyang county's Finance Bureau in Shangrao, Jiangxi province－and other public servants defrauded the special capital construction fund of 94 million yuan from 2006 to 2010. He then fled to Singapore in January 2011.

Li was put under investigation in February 2011, and the Ministry of Public Security requested Interpol issue a red notice for Li. He was arrested the following month, and his assets that had been transferred to Singapore were frozen.

Due to his inability to appear a year after the red notice was issued, the Shangrao People's Procuratorate applied to confiscate Li's illegal gains in March 2013. Li took the initiative to write a letter to return to China and surrender himself in February 2015, and he was repatriated three months later. The remaining 26 million yuan in assets that Li and his wife had transferred to Singapore were returned to China.

China's procuratorial organs prosecuted 28,387 people for duty crimes from 2018 to 2019, according to Wang.

Wang said corruption, offering and taking bribes and embezzling public funds account for over 80 percent of the duty crimes handled by the procuratorate. The charges mainly focus on negligence, abusing power and bending the law for personal gain, he said.

More than 80 percent of duty crimes were committed by civil servants below the township level, mainly occurring in construction projects, land expropriation and relocation, funds allocated for benefiting the people, special subsidies and other fields with a large number of funds but weak supervision. The number of duty crimes from grassroots civil servants has increased significantly, he said.

The amount of money involved in some cases is particularly large, resulting in extremely bad social influence, and tarnishing the image of the Party and the government, Wang said. For instance, Zhao Zhengyong, former Party secretary of Shaanxi province, was recently put on trial for taking 717 million yuan in bribes.