Li Shubiao, former director of the Public Housing Fund
Management Center of Chenzhou, central China's Hunan
Province, has been charged with embezzling 120 million yuan
(US$14.5 million) for gambling in Macao, and is expected to be
tried in April.
Local police have traced 15 criminal cases involving 21 people
in connection with Li, and smashed an underground bank that had
been laundering money after he was detained early last year,
reported Xinhua News Agency.
Investigators claim that Li appropriated more than 51 million
yuan (US$6 million) from the city's 600 million yuan (US$72
million) public housing fund between 1999 and 2004, and allege that
he also illegally obtained nearly 70 million yuan (US$8.5 million)
in bank loans by using the fund as security.
The public housing fund is used to help people purchase private
houses. No one is allowed to use the fund as a guarantee for
loans.
Police say that almost all of the 120 million yuan Li is alleged
to have embezzled was poured into casinos in Macao, where he is
said to have spent a lot of time gambling using the alias "Lin
Kangqun."
Police have recovered 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million) of the
money.
Li is said to have entrusted an illegal banking house in Zhuhai,
a coastal city in south China's Guangdong
Province, to help him transfer the huge amounts to neighboring
Macao.
According to Chinese rules, a person from the mainland going to
Macao can only take up to 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) in cash. If Li had
taken all the embezzled money himself he would have to have made
6,000 trips.
The boss of the underground bank, Wu Mingding, has also been
detained by police.
A nationwide crackdown on gambling started in January.
(China Daily March 1, 2005)