Corrupt Chinese officials stashed away over $120 billion overseas: report

Crookrd Chinese officials seem to have proved that large-scale corruption is not India's preserve, that the country too is equally, or even better, equipped at swindling money. Chinese officials are reported to have siphoned off over $120 billion out of the country between 1990 and 2008. 

Thousands of corrupt government officials and executives of state-run firms have vanished with 800 billion yuan ($123.7 billion) in ill-gotten wealth over the past two decades, according to a report prepared by the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank.

Graft has been so widespread in China that, according to the study, up to 18,000 government officials were involved in the $120-billion heist.

These officials have deposited money in offshore bank accounts and fled China, most of them to the United States, Canada and Australia, while some of them have simply vanished, according to a study posted earlier on the People's Bank's web site.

The report has cited the instance of three managers at a Bank of China branch who fled to the US and Canada in 2001 with $483 million and a former vice chairman of Chinese parliament, Cheng Kejie, who parked tens of millions of yuan in ill-gotten gains in overseas bank accounts.

The central bank has since removed the study from its web site.