Exclusive: China seizes $14.5 billion assets from family, associates of ex-security chief - sources

[okaawhatever]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the center of China's biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said.

More than 300 of Zhou's relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, the sources, who have been briefed on the investigation, told Reuters.

The sheer size of the asset seizures and the scale of the investigations into the people around Zhou - both unreported until now - make the corruption probe unprecedented in modern China and would appear to show that President Xi Jinping is tackling graft at the highest levels.

But it may also be driven partly by political payback after Zhou angered leaders such as Xi by opposing the ouster of former high-flying politician Bo Xilai, who was jailed for life in September for corruption and abuse of power.

Zhou, 71, has been under virtual house arrest since authorities began formally investigating him late last year. He is the most senior Chinese politician to be ensnared in a corruption investigation since the Communist Party swept to power in 1949.

Continued at Link:

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/30/us-china-corruption-zhou-idUSBREA2T02S20140330

[MADem]

1. Wow. K/R. nt

[Warpy]

2. I wish we could claw it back like that here.

We just let them keep on stealing as long as they're stealing from the poor.

[JHB]

3. "Clawed back" to who?

Keep in mind the part there about "political payback". They were ok with him building this network up until he crossed people even higher on the totem pole. People who will now divvy up those assets among their own crony- and favor-trading networks.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

4. ding, ding, ding. we have a winner.

the saying here is simple: "if you are accused, make sure your defender in higher on the food chain than your accuser."

[Warpy]

5. Yeah, probably, but concentrated into more hands

and that's progress.

[JPK]

6. If he stole that much......

I wonder what the upper leadership has hidden in overseas banks.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

7. In any dictatorship,

you only get to rent whatever wealth you accumulate, however you got it.
Which is why the rich from China want in here. Somehow, all those high taxes the Republicans wail about, not to mention that Kenyan Muslim Socialist in the WH, can't keep em away. Can't imagine why.
Also why Putin can't get rich Russians to keep their money in Russia. They're not so stupid as to make themselves vulnerable to his next temper tantrum.