Willingly or by force, fugitives come home

Since July, when the Chinese authorities launched Fox Hunt, an operation to track down economic fugitives and confiscate their ill-gotten assets, 680 suspects have been brought back from abroad to face trial, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

Of those, 290 were forcibly captured by the police, while 390 others in 69 countries and regions were persuaded to return to China and confess their crimes - four times more than in 2013, according to the ministry.

The police brought back 13 corrupt officials who had fled to other countries, including Wang Guoqiang, former Party chief of Fengcheng, Liaoning province, to face justice after he spent two years on the run in the United States following a corruption scandal. Several billion yuan that had been illegally transferred abroad was also recovered, the ministry said.