Banking News
- ABC officials sacked following 51-million-yuan theft
Date: 25-Apr-2007 Sources: (People's Daily)
The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) has fired several senior officials of branches in north China which had 51 million yuan (6.5 million U.S. dollars) stolen from under their noses by two former employees.
Qu Jianyao, president of ABC's Hebei Province branch was demanded to resign. Deng Zhenguo, vice president and head of accounting, and Xu Yuesheng, head of security, were both sacked.
President and two vice presidents of the ABC's branch in Handan city, who are respectively in charge of accounting and security, and head and deputy head of the branch's cash management center were all sacked. All members of staff in the branch's cash-management center were suspended pending a full investigation.
'The theft reflects loopholes in ABC's management,' said Han Zhongqi, ABC's vice president, adding that the ABC had been examining all its vaults.
'Most of the funds have been frozen and recovered,' Han said.
Last week, police arrested 34-year-old Ren Xiaofeng and 37-year-old Ma Xiangjing, who used to work for the cash-management center.
According to police, the suspects 'did not deny' committing the theft, one of the nation's largest cash thefts on record.
The theft drew the attention of central government leaders and the Public Security Ministry put them on its most-wanted list.
Three men shared a 200,000-yuan reward from the local government for providing information leading to the arrest.
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