On June 8, 2013, the Hong Kong-based Mirror Books published an article titled, “Chinese Real Estate Industry May Have Become the Biggest Money-Laundering Channel.” “Not only is there money laundering; it is a double shameless plunder. The first plunder is corruption. It is a second plunder when officials invest the money collected through their corrupt acts and channel it into real estate, thus causing housing prices to rise.”
According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, since November 2012, there has been a new trend of selling luxury homes and villas. Many government officials, especially those in Guangzhou and Shanghai, have undersold their luxury homes. In Guangzhou and Shanghai, officials put up 4,880 and 4,755 luxury homes for sale, respectively. Of those public officials who left China from the Mid-Autumn Festival to October 1, 2012, more than 1,100 of them did not return to China on time and 714 of those 1,100 officials have been categorized as having fled China. In 2010, the outflow of illegal money from China was US$412 billion. In 2012, it was US$600 billion. It has been estimated that, in 2012, US$1 trillion was transported overseas. In 2013, the illegal funds that have fled China has reached US$1.5 trillion.
Source: Mirror Books (http://city.mirrorbooks.com) , June 8, 2013
http://city.mirrorbooks.com/news/?action-viewnews-itemid-88522