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Dozens of Interpol ‘red notices’ for Chinese suspects vanish from view as Skynet corruption strategy seems to shift

  • About 40 suspects on China’s ‘100 most wanted’ list remain at large, but they have all been removed from the public version of Interpol’s red notice list
  • They may have been shifted to a non-public list at Beijing’s request, according to a lawyer who has helped some Chinese suspects get red notices rescinded

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Chinese graft suspect Liu Baofeng, flanked by police, emerges from a Hainan Airlines flight from Vancouver, at Shenzhen’s Bao’an International Airport on June 29, 2019. Photo: CCDI
Ian Youngin Vancouver

On June 29, 2019, a flight from Vancouver, Canada, was greeted on the tarmac at Shenzhen’s Baoan International Airport by police officers.

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They boarded the Boeing 787 and emerged with a small, gaunt man dressed in a white polo shirt, then paused for a photo at the top of the stairs in the afternoon sunshine before marching corruption suspect Liu Baofeng off to face Chinese justice.

The former securities trader’s arrest was hailed by state news agency Xinhua as the culmination of yet another “red notice hunt”, Liu having featured in a 2015 campaign targeting China’s “100 most wanted” international corruption fugitives.

To great fanfare, all had been placed on the public version of Interpol’s “red notice” list, which calls on police worldwide to locate and arrest suspects.

The campaign was the centrepiece of President Xi Jinping’s “Skynet” anti-corruption crackdown, and was cited by Beijing as an example of global policing cooperation. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), China’s corruption-fighting agency, published the suspects’ red notice numbers and links to their photos on the Interpol website.

Liu Baofeng is led away by police after arriving at Shenzhen’s Baoan International Airport on June 29, 2019. Photo: CCDI
Liu Baofeng is led away by police after arriving at Shenzhen’s Baoan International Airport on June 29, 2019. Photo: CCDI

But an examination of Interpol’s current records reveals that all of the “100 most wanted” have now been removed from the public red notice list, even though about 40 of them are believed to remain at large.

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