The Curious Case of the Mysterious Disappearing Chinese Executive
China is in the midst of attempting to clean-up their corporate corruption.
Evidently, activities at some of the top companies and banks are darker, more sinister, and smell worse than their horrible pollution.
We have been reporting at ComplianceX about the mysterious disappearance of a large number of Chinese executives. Three weeks ago Guotai Securities announced that it has “lost” its boss. How does one lose a boss is the big question. Two investment bankers at Citic Securities, the largest brokerage firm in China, also disappeared. There have been missing executives from Guotai Junan International, China Minsheng Bank, China Aircraft, and Hanergy among other organizations.
Today’s MIA is “China’s Warren Buffett”. The billionaire Guo Guangchang’s disappearance is leading to speculation of either being taken away by police for arrest or questioning. Guangchang owns properties such as Club Med resorts, a stake in Cirque Du Soleil, and various holding in insurance and property.
China’s investigations into corruption and the case of the disappearing executives started occurring when the Chinese stock market plunged over 40 percent earlier this year. At this time the government took aggressive steps to artificially prop-up the market. Companies were ordered to buy shares to keep the stock market from falling further and required not to sell securities.
The mysterious disappearances are linked to the theory that these individuals either are scapegoats for causing the stock market crash (which reflected poorly on the government’s initiatives to show the world that they are a first class player in the financial markets) or didn’t go along with government efforts to manipulate the stock market. Another possibility is that they have been involved with corruption or know about corporate misdeeds, and brought in for “questioning”.
I’d wager if we rounded-up the CEOs of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and other big banks for some intense questioning in some dark, dank prison cell whenever there is a fresh scandal, bad bank behavior would change overnight.
We have been getting a little tired of writing about issues in the United and curious about the rest of the world, in addition to China. It turns out that they are just as corrupt and crazy as us.
In our ComplianceX blog we detail compliance nightmares in Poland, Israel, Tanzania, Russia, Trinidad, Switzerland, the Vatican …and that’s probably enough for now.
In other news, two NYPD officers at the 109th precent in Queens have been charged with corruption and bribery. The two were alleged to have protected drug activities at karaoke social clubs. They took cash from the drug dealers and warned them of any potential police raids. I understand that cops need to supplement their pay but this seems just a little inappropriate.
http://compliancex.com/nypd-detective-and-lieutenant-accused-of-accepting-bribes-from-flushing-karaoke-bars/