A suspect involved in a fraud scam against a Shanghai securities firm involving more than 90 million yuan (US$14.5 million) in the 1990s has been arrested, police said yesterday.

Xie Renliang, who had obtained an Australian passport with a stolen identity, was caught by police officers in a hotel room in Hangzhou on March 3.

Police said Xie defrauded a securities firm affiliated to the Shanghai Finance Bureau. He was accused of defrauding the firm out of 46 million yuan in funds and 45.5 million yuan in government bonds.

He was caught as part of the operation Fox Hunt 2015, the country’s international manhunt for suspects involved in economic crimes and corruption cases.

Xie, whose Ningbo-based company was running in the red in 1996, signed illegal contracts with the Shanghai firm with a fake seal from a securities company in Ningbo and bond-trading certificates between March and November that year, police said.

After losing the money with failed investments in futures and stock trades, Xie fled the country on March 2, 1997, under the stolen identity of Zhang Jianping, who is from Anhui Province.

Police said Xie later became an Australian citizen under the name Zhang. He had divorced his wife, who then married an Australian Chinese to gain citizenship. She later divorced him and remarried Xie, who received Australian citizenship through the marriage.

Xie’s cover was blown after entry-exit frontier inspection police in Zhejiang Province informed Shanghai police of his arrival in early March.

Police said they have captured 27 suspects since the launch of Fox Hunt 2015.

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