Huizhou security chief faces charges over permit sales
Scam netted suspects up to 40m yuan and allowed prostitutes into HK, Macau
The public security chief of Huizhou in Guangzhou is facing graft charges after being sacked last month for illegally selling two-way permits to mainlanders, including prostitutes seeking to work in Hong Kong and Macau.
Wu Huali , 48, and his accomplices were estimated to have made 20 to 40 million yuan from selling permits, the Beijing Times reported yesterday, putting the number issued at 3,000 to 4,000. More than 500 of those who bought permits to the two special administrative regions from Wu were found to have been engaged in prostitution.
The permits are said to cost 7,000 to 10,000 yuan each, while the application fee through legal channels is 120 yuan.
Police in Hong Kong yesterday revealed a top-level cross-border taskforce was set up to investigate corruption among mainland officials after the extent of the problem was exposed in a crackdown on sex workers in the city.
Former police commissioner Tsang Yam-pui is understood to have met Assistant Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei to discuss the matter.
Mr Tsang had been pushing for a 'more effective and stringent application process for two-way permit and passport holders; more effective screening at immigration control points; and enhancing local enforcement', the spokeswoman said last night.
Huizhou's municipal People's Congress approved Wu's removal on October 9, nine months after he assumed office, citing his involvement in gambling in Macau, illicit endorsements of exit permits and taking bribes.
It is an open secret on the mainland that prostitutes wanting to go to Hong Kong or Macau to work must first bribe police officers to obtain travel permits. Wu is the first high-level police officer to be investigated for such actions.
The Beijing Times report said Wu, who officially earned less than 4,000 yuan a month, gambled away more than 10 million yuan in 68 visits to Macau casinos during his nine-month tenure as security bureau chief.
One of Wu's accomplices, Qiu Jinhui, director of Huizhou's exit-entry administration office, has also been arrested.
The abuse of the exit permit system was highlighted at the end of last year, when Hong Kong police raided Mongkok brothels and arrested 110 prostitutes from the mainland.
Most of the prostitutes, who were from Guangdong, Guangxi , Hunan , Hubei and Sichuan , were found to have short-term permits for travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macau issued by Huizhou police.
Details of the arrests were handed to authorities in Guangdong and an investigation was launched even before Wu took office.
'There was clearly a problem when we kept finding hundreds of these girls flooding onto the streets of Mongkok with these permits,' said a senior Hong Kong police source.
