MCLC: House Sister detained

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: House Sister detained
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Source: NYT (2/5//13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/asia/latest-corruption-scourge-in-c
hina-centers-on-housing.html

‘House Sister,’ Collector of Properties, Held in Chinese Graft Case
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

HONG KONG — The Chinese police said on Tuesday that they had detained Gong
Aiai, popularly known as House Sister, in a corruption case that has
gripped China for weeks after it was revealed that Ms. Gong and her family
had accumulated dozens of houses and other properties. She was caught on
Sunday, the police said, and is being held on suspicion of forging
official identity papers and other documents she used in an effort to
escape detection.

Ms. Gong and her collection of properties struck a raw nerve with millions
of Chinese who are outraged over graft and brazen self-enrichment by
officials and their confederates, and frustrated by the high cost of homes
in cities where it seems many rich and powerful people have invested in
housing that often sits empty.

“House Sister is a microcosm of China’s problems,” said Li Xinde, a
freelance journalist who runs a Web site <http://www.yulun6.com/> devoted
to exposing official corruption. “Many ordinary people simply can’t afford
to buy a single home, but House Sister suddenly accumulated one after
another. It’s a classic case that shows the crazy extent of the
intertwining of money and power in China.”

A former vice president of the Shenmu Rural Commercial Bank in the
northwestern province of Shaanxi, Ms. Gong owned 41 residential and
commercial properties in Beijing alone, the police in the capital said
last week. They said Ms. Gong bought at least 10 of the properties by
using an illegally obtained national identity card and Beijing residence
registration, apparently to try to evade detection and skirt limits on
nonlocal residents buying housing in Beijing.

That is not counting the two properties that earlier newspaper reports
said she held in the northwestern city of Xi’an, and two in her home
county, Shenmu.

Before being taken into custody on Sunday, Ms. Gong had disappeared from
public view for about two weeks, and many bloggers accused the police of
failing to pursue her. In an interview in mid-January, she said the money
for the property came from legitimate family investments. The police
statement issued by state news media said that Ms. Gong had submitted her
resignation from the bank in June, but that the bank board formally
approved it on Jan. 2.

The country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has repeatedly vowed to stamp out
graft and greed by officials since he was appointed head of the ruling
Communist Party in November. Emboldened by such promises, Chinese Internet
sites and newspapers have published aspate of accusations about officials
and associates exploiting their illicit wealth and connections to acquire
luxury-brand watches, expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles and other
symbols of excess. Those accusations have in turn kindled growing demands
for officials to disclose their wealth to the public.

Almost inevitably after House Sister rose to notoriety, the news media
have given each subsequent case a similar nickname. Zhang Xiuting, called
House Brother, is an anticorruption official in northeast China who is
under investigation for amassing 19 properties along with his former wife.
Shenzhen, in southern China, has offered up a House Uncle, Zhou Weisi, a
local official whose family was accused on the Internet of piling up 80
properties and 20 cars.

Zhai Zhenfeng, a former housing administration official in Zhengzhou,
capital of Henan Province, in central China, was arrested in early January
after accusations emerged that he and his wife had illegally obtained and
sold 100 or more apartments.

Such exploits, however, appear puny next to those of Zhao Haibin, a party
official and former public security chief in Lufeng in southern China, who
was accused by a local businessman of accumulating at least 192 apartments
and other units of real estate, the Southern Metropolitan Daily reported
on Tuesday. Mr. Zhao told the paper he was merely minding the properties
for his younger brother.

Many of these cases appear to have come to light only after rivals or
disgruntled associates leaked accusations on the Internet.

Nearly all the scandals have also involved officials using multiple
identity cards and household residence permits, called “hukou,” in efforts
to evade detection and the limits that many big cities impose on how many
residences an individual can buy.

Patrick Zuo contributed research from Beijing.