Cai Haowen, who is on a A-level wanted list of the Ministry of Public Security for gambling away a large sum of public money, was captured in a train, the Jilin provincial department of public security announced Sunday.

"Cai is now on the way back to Jilin," said an official with the department who declined to give his name.

The department was tipped off on the early Saturday morning that Cai appeared in Beijing and railway police finally captured him on a train from Beijing to Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province around 9 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Cai was the former director of the traffic and transportation department of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin. Police found that Cai defalcated 2.76 million yuan (US$332,530) from his department and borrowed another 750,000 yuan (US$90,360) from companies under his supervision from January to November in 2004.

In 2004, Cai made 27 trips to a neighboring country and squandered all the money in a local casino. He fled away on Nov. 19 in 2004, according to the department.

Cai, who is of Korean ethnic group, was born in Yanji City of Jilin on Jan. 16 in 1962. He was expelled from the Communist Party of China and from his post by the discipline inspection commission and the procuratorate of Yanbian.

(Xinhua News Agency February 7, 2005)