A prime suspect in a major bank fraud case has turned himself in to police after spending years hiding out in Canada, the Ministry of Public Security said Monday.

Li Dongzhe and his brother Li Donghu [file photo]

The suspect, Li Dongzhe, was found to have been the mastermind of bank fraud "involving a huge amount of money" from 2000 to 2004, and he worked with several accomplices, said a ministry statement.

He fled to Canada in December 2004, before the case was exposed, the statement said.

Li has returned to China and turned himself over to police "recently," it said.

Earlier media reports said Li, then a businessman, and the other prime suspect, Gao Shan, the former head of a branch of the Bank of China in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, allegedly siphoned 1 billion yuan (158 million U.S. dollars) from customers' accounts.

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