China says nabs 150 graft suspects since start of 2015

SHANGHAI - Chinese police have brought back 150 graft suspects from 32 countries as the government's crackdown on economic crimes intensifies, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Eight of the suspects had been on the run for more than 10 years and 44 were involved in cases relating to tens of millions of yuan, the newspaper said citing Gao Feng, the political commissar of the Public Security Ministry's (MPS) economic crimes bureau.

Operation Fox Hunt was launched by the government last year to go after suspects who left China seeking refuge abroad, often taking large sums of money with them, as part of a campaign led by President Xi Jinping to stamp out corruption.

Gao said a total of 100,000 economic crime cases involving nearly 192 billion yuan ($30.96 billion) had been tackled, mainly involving the illegal fundraising of cash from the public, credit card fraud and producing fake currency on the Chinese mainland.

In January, the MPS said that it had captured 680 people from July to December last year, a number it described as "unprecedented".