Fake cops' con banked on real China anti-graft fear

China's infamous knockoff industry has expanded into anti-graft campaigns, Chinese media reported, with an elaborate extortion scheme to kidnap local officials and hold them in a fake interrogation room.

Four men posing as corruption investigators snatched agriculture official Zhang Wei and his wife from their home, telling them they had been targeted by President Xi Jinping's campaign against corruption, the Shenghuo Bao newspaper reported.

The men broke into Zhang's house one evening while the family watched television, prompting a panicked call from his wife to local officials.

The couple were taken to a meticulously recreated "interrogation room" in an abandoned mall and questioned for hours, finally agreeing to pay 400,000 yuan ($63,000) for their release.

Police in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang have formally arrested three of the alleged perpetrators on charges of "extortion" following the August incident, according to the newspaper, while the fourth suspect remains at large.

The conspiracy was based on the idea that "leaders fear investigation", Monday's report said.

The men were initially dissuaded by the costs of buying the necessary props, including several computers, but realised that they could easily recoup their initial investment of 200,000 yuan ($31,000) with just one kidnapping.

China has detained multitudes of both high-level "tigers" and low-level "flies" for malfeasance as part of a much-publicised anti-corruption campaign that has created a climate of fear among bureaucrats long accustomed to acting with impunity.

China is a major producer of ersatz goods, such as fake Louis Vuitton bags, Apple shops, and even a financial firm called Goldman Sachs.

In July, authorities arrested a man in the central province of Hubei for a long-running scam involving a fake police station in his home, reports said.

Commenters on Chinese social media gave the anti-graft impostors tongue-in-cheek kudos for their ingenuity and enterprising approach to tackling the country's endemic corruption.

"Even though it's illegal, you can't help but praise the four", said one poster on Chinese micro-blog Weibo.

The incident also highlighted a darker side of the anti-graft campaign, which many have called the latest in a long history of political purges by Chinese leaders who are not subject to judicial oversight.

In practice, one commenter said, there is little difference between real and counterfeit investigators in a country where officials routinely ignore basic rights.

Chinese authorities often hide their identities and use extra-legal "black jails" as interrogation locations, making it difficult to distinguish between real, often plain-clothes, investigators and impostors.

"Because our laws are fake," the poster noted, "producing these kinds of things is very normal".

Source: AFP