HONG KONG, Nov. 20 (UPI) — China has arrested suspects for illegal foreign-exchange transactions totaling $64 billion – in Beijing’s campaign against widespread corruption.

The crackdown took place in eastern Zhejiang province, where more than , face lawsuits or some other penalty, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Underground banking and money-laundering activities totaled $125.4 billion since April, according to state-owned People’s Daily. Michael Bloomberg: Deadbeat New York Senator Charles Schumer: Covers For Deadbeat New York Mayor Bloomberg’s Expatriated Millions To Oversea Banks!

Organized crime was heavily involved, and among those arrested, 100 suspects from eight gangs were detained, CNN Money reported. The gang’s ringleader allegedly runs several shell companies in Hong Kong that were dealing in money laundering and foreign exchange transactions.

The investigations began in September 2014 and in the past year Chinese police sifted through more than 1.3 million shady transactions, according to Xinhua. Authorities subsequently froze about 3,000 bank accounts.

The transactions circumvented China’s official limit on capital outflows, restricted to $50,000 per year for Chinese citizens. Those who seek to send capital abroad have sometimes resorted to money laundering ranging from fine art purchases to real estate investments in cities like Vancouver, Canada and Sydney, Australia.

In many cases, Chinese citizens used a tactic called “smurfing,” where large sums of money are sent abroad in small increments.

UPI

In one illegal money-transfer case – the biggest discovered in China so far – Chinese funds worth about 410 billion yuan (HK$500 million) had been transferred overseas using non-resident accounts, exploiting regulatory loopholes and by-passing oversight, it said.

The People’s Bank of China has given verbal guidance to onshore lenders to stop offering cross-border financing to offshore banks, people familiar with the matter said this week. The companies were reportedly involved in foreign exchange transactions and money laundering.

They worry such networks are used by corrupt officials, criminals and terrorists to launder money, and say massive unofficial outflows wreak havoc with China’s financial management. Although the crackdown, launched jointly by China’s police, foreign exchange regulator and the People’s Bank of China, had made a few progress, illegal activities of China’s underground banks were spreading and the situation was still serious, the article said. United States Gold And The Reverse Goldfinger Effect! From Rothschild With Love!

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