Australia poised to seize assets of corrupt Chinese: report
Sydney (AFP) - Australia is poised to help China seize assets from corrupt officials and assist Beijing in extraditing economic fugitives, a report said Tuesday.
Corruption has caused widespread public anger in China, and President Xi Jinping has vowed to root out crooked officials ranging from high-ranking "tigers" to low-level "flies".
Recent reports said several of Beijing's most-wanted had been tracked to Australia -- a country, along with the United States and Canada, seen as a favoured destination for illicit Chinese money.
Commander Bruce Hill, the manager of the Australian Federal Police's operations in Asia, said authorities were ready to seize assets of corrupt officials within weeks, in an unprecedented joint operation with their Chinese counterparts.
He told the Sydney Morning Herald that both sides had agreed on a priority list of alleged economic fugitives who have taken residence in Australia.
Among them are naturalised Australian citizens and permanent residents who for years have laundered money under the guise of being genuine investment or business migrants from China, according to a report published in the newspaper Tuesday.
"They don't all of a sudden leave overnight and take a bag of money with them. In some cases they're very carefully planned," said Hill, who is based in Beijing.
He explained that a typical scenario involved officials sending their spouses and children overseas, often using them as a conduit to shift assets offshore.
With barely any assets to their name, the official can then join their family overseas.
"As time goes on, they start to put (their funds) into legitimate assets such as houses and property and shares and bank accounts and then the money becomes their wealth," said Hill.
"But it's never been their money to start with in the first place; it's the corrupt money flowing out of China."
Hill said the priority list was culled from a broader list of "less than a hundred people", and that the assets being pursued were in the "many hundreds of millions of dollars".
Last week China's foreign ministry expressed concern that Australia's introduction of a new "premium investor visa" -- giving immigrants residency after a year if they invest Aus$15 million (US$13 million) -- could be abused by corrupt Chinese officials.
"I need to point out China is ramping up its campaign on corruption," said spokesman Hong Lei. "Part of that campaign is to retrieve the embezzlements that have been siphoned to overseas.
"We need the Australian cooperation on this. We don't want these corrupt officials or fugitives to find safe havens overseas."
