Category Archives: Crime and Corruption

China – police are using facial-recognition glasses to scan crowds for wanted criminals

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  • Railway police have begun using facial-recognition eyewear to catch criminals.
  • In tests the glasses identified faces within 100 milliseconds.
  • Seven people have been arrested for a range of previous crimes, and another 26 were banned from travel.
  • China has been ramping up its use of facial-recognition technology as it moves toward a nationwide database that can recognise any citizen within three seconds.

Chinese railway police are using facial-recognition sunglasses to catch suspects at train stations in Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province.

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China: Rights Crackdown Goes Global Tightened Control on Expression, Internet, Minority Rights

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Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who died in Chinese custody in July 2017.

New York, January 18, 2018) –The Chinese government under the leadership of President Xi Jinping expanded its sustained offensive against human rights both at home and abroad in 2017, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018. The death of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo in a hospital under heavy guard in July epitomized the authorities’ deep contempt for people’s rights. China used its increasing global influence to threaten the protection of rights internationally.

Liu Xiaobo died from cancer in a Shenyang hospital, surrounded by state security, after serving nearly 9 years of his 11-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion.” During his hospitalization, authorities isolated Liu and his wife, Liu Xia, from family and supporters, and denied Liu’s request to seek treatment outside the country. Since Liu’s death, authorities have forcibly disappeared Liu Xia.

Read Full Story Here: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/18/china-rights-crackdown-goes-global

China’s Sinovel convicted in U.S. of trade-secret theft…

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(Reuters) – Chinese wind turbine maker Sinovel Wind Group Co was convicted on Wednesday of U.S. charges that it stole trade secrets from AMSC, causing the Massachusetts-based company to lose more than $800 million.

A federal jury in Madison, Wisconsin, found Sinovel, once AMSC’s largest customer, guilty on all charges it faced, including conspiracy, trade-secret theft and wire fraud, the U.S. Justice Department said.

The conviction exposes Beijing-based Sinovel to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential fines, according to the Justice Department. It is scheduled to be sentenced on June 4.

Sinovel, which saw its shares slide 4 percent in Thursday morning trade on the news, will take legal measures to protect its rights and interests as well as those of its shareholders, it said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange.

The stock has lost 46 percent since the charges were brought in June 2013, giving it a market value of about $1.4 billion.

The charges were announced amid heightened concern about Chinese theft of U.S. trade secrets and a legal battle in the Chinese courts pitting Devens, Massachusetts-based AMSC against Sinovel, one of the world’s largest turbine makers.

The conviction also comes as the United States studies possible intellectual property action against China. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday China’s tech ambitions represent a direct threat that is being implemented by disrespect for “intellectual property rights, by commercial espionage.”

Read Full Story Here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sinovel-wind-gro-usa-court/chinas-sinovel-convicted-in-u-s-of-trade-secret-theft-idUSKBN1FD2XL

China – How a Massive Pyramid Scheme in Defrauded Millions

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A pyramid scheme in China has been revealed to have ensnared millions of investors, who have jointly lost 30 billion yuan (about $4.7 billion) in investment capital.

Back in December 2017, Zhang Xiaolei, founder of online platform Qianbao.com, turned himself into the police, admitting that he had been running a Ponzi scheme since the company’s founding in 2012.

Caixin, a Chinese business publication, reported that the case involved total funds of roughly 70 billion yuan (about $10.9 billion).

A report published on Jan. 20 by the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece, Xinhua, revealed how the company defrauded its customers.

Qianbao founder Zhang Xiaolei.

The company’s purported business model was an online platform that would reward its users for their activity on it, eventually attracting enough users to start selling advertising on the site.

Read Full Story Here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-a-massive-pyramid-scheme-in-china-defrauded-millions_2421983.html

Probe finds synthetic opioid easily shipped from China to US

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Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) on Wednesday released the results of a nearly yearlong bipartisan investigation showing the ease of which drug traffickers in China can ship powerful synthetic opioids into the United States.

The 100-page report found that when it comes to fentanyl — which can be up to 50 times more potent than heroin — those selling online in China prefer to ship the drug into the country through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) rather than private mail shippers, reportedly because the sellers think there’s less of a risk that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will seize the package.

Lawmakers and the White House are grappling with how to curb an opioid epidemic that’s led to skyrocketing death rates. The number of deaths from drugs like fentanyl more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This bipartisan investigation has uncovered how incredibly easy it is to buy these deadly drugs online and have them shipped here through the mail,” Carper said in a statement.

“We have also learned how ill-equipped federal agencies were to prevent drug smugglers from taking advantage of a massive surge in recent years of e-commerce and international mail to ship synthetic opioid, like fentanyl, into our communities.”

The report’s release comes ahead of a hearing on the issue Thursday, where officials from various agencies will be called to testify before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on investigations led by Portman and Carper.

In performing the investigation, subcommittee staff told reporters that they googled “fentanyl for sale.” Though they didn’t ultimately buy the drug, they said they communicated with six sellers over the course of three months.

Read The Full Story Here: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/370598-congressional-probe-finds-synthetic-opioid-easily-shipped-from-china-to-us

China’s Latest Excuse to Bully Taiwanese Businesses – Protecting the Environment

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Taiwanese businesses that operate and invest in China face many risks: getting scammed, bullied, and beaten by local mafia, and getting ensnared in local political infighting—all this without any form of legal redress.

The latest hurdle comes in the form of restrictive environmental protection regulations that have suffocated businesses, forcing them to close down.

Since China enacted laws to open up trade and business with Taiwan in the 1990s, many companies from the island across the strait have capitalized on the opportunity of China’s sizeable market.

However, for some, the investments haven’t paid off.

Late last year, a leaked online document revealed that Kunshan City in Jiangsu Province—a hub for Taiwan businesses—had requested 270 factories to stop production from Dec. 25 to Jan. 10 because the local freshwater quality was not up to standard. About a half of the affected companies were Taiwanese, according to the BBC.

Read much more here: http://www.ntd.tv/2018/01/16/protecting-the-environment-is-chinas-latest-excuse-to-bully-taiwanese-businesses/

Chinese Corrupt Officials Get Creative With Ways to Hide Their Embezzled Cash..

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Chinese Communist Party cadres are capable of embezzling huge sums of money—but how do they store it?

As the funds are illicit, officials know better than to save the money in banks, so they’ve become very creative in how they hide their stash.

The topic surfaced when a piece of news recently went viral in China. In Harbin City, in the northernmost Heilongjiang Province, a local resident who was renovating his house discovered loads of cash hidden in the walls. The previous homeowner had stowed away 140 million yuan (about $21.7 million), leading many netizens to assume he was a corrupt official.

Local authorities quelled the internet rumors by claiming that the money was connected to a scam case that local police were investigating.

But netizens may not be far off the mark, as officials have been caught secretly hoarding their spoils.

Last September, the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-corruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, partnered with state broadcaster CCTV to air a special segment on corruption. It revealed how a Party cadre and former chairman of Chinese carmaker FAW Group, Xu Jianyi, hid his valuables in order to escape authorities. He placed his watches and gold bars inside tea canisters and tried to hide in a tree in his villa when he learned that the agency was coming for him.

Read The Full Story Here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-corrupt-officials-get-creative-with-ways-to-hide-their-embezzled-cash_2416363.html