A US grand jury indicted two former Bank of China (BOC)
managers and their wives on Tuesday concerning a complex scheme
that authorities say defrauded the bank of US$485 million, the
Justice Department said.
The two couples and the fugitive brother of one of the wives
were charged with 15 counts of racketeering, money laundering and
fraud, the department said in a statement announcing the indictment
by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas.
Xu Guojun and Xu Chaofan were managers of BOC's Kaiping Branch
in Guangdong
Province in the 1990s. The bank is one of the country's four
biggest lenders.
They laundered the stolen money through Hong Kong, Canada, the
United States and other countries and regions in a scheme that
began in 1991 and ran until 2004, when the couples were arrested,
the statement said.
The two men created shell corporations in Hong Kong and funneled
the BOC's money into the fake firms and into numerous personal bank
and investment accounts. The two bankers then emigrated to the
United States from China with their wives, Kuang Wanfang and Yu
Yingyi, by obtaining false identities and entering into sham
marriages with naturalized US citizens, it said.
Kuang and Yu were accused of helping their husbands launder the
proceeds, including through Las Vegas casino accounts. They also
violated immigration laws by entering the country illegally and
then securing US passports through fraudulent means, the Department
of Justice said.
The indictment alleges that Kuang's brother, who remains a
fugitive, helped the couples launder the money.
A third former manager of the BOC Kaiping Branch pleaded guilty
to playing a role in the scheme and cooperated with investigators,
the statement said. He returned voluntarily to China to face
prosecution for bribery and bank theft, it added.
(China Daily February 3, 2006)