Li Shubiao, former director of the Public Housing Fund Management Center of Chenzhou, central China's Hunan Province, has been charged with embezzling 120 million yuan (US$14.5 million) for gambling in Macao, and is expected to be tried in April.

Local police have traced 15 criminal cases involving 21 people in connection with Li, and smashed an underground bank that had been laundering money after he was detained early last year, reported Xinhua News Agency.

Investigators claim that Li appropriated more than 51 million yuan (US$6 million) from the city's 600 million yuan (US$72 million) public housing fund between 1999 and 2004, and allege that he also illegally obtained nearly 70 million yuan (US$8.5 million) in bank loans by using the fund as security.

The public housing fund is used to help people purchase private houses. No one is allowed to use the fund as a guarantee for loans.

Police say that almost all of the 120 million yuan Li is alleged to have embezzled was poured into casinos in Macao, where he is said to have spent a lot of time gambling using the alias "Lin Kangqun."

Police have recovered 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million) of the money.

Li is said to have entrusted an illegal banking house in Zhuhai, a coastal city in south China's Guangdong Province, to help him transfer the huge amounts to neighboring Macao.

According to Chinese rules, a person from the mainland going to Macao can only take up to 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) in cash. If Li had taken all the embezzled money himself he would have to have made 6,000 trips.

The boss of the underground bank, Wu Mingding, has also been detained by police.

A nationwide crackdown on gambling started in January.

(China Daily March 1, 2005)