Bank of China confirms theft of nearly US$500m

The president of Bank of China revealed that officials from the Kaiping branch had stolen US$483m from the bank. Liu Mingkang said that the officials had fled overseas shortly after the arrival of an audit team in the Guangdong city. Some of the money, which was stolen over a period of seven years, has been laundered in the gambling centres of Macau and Las Vegas. Neither this theft, nor the recent exposure of misconduct at the bank’s New York branch, is expected to affect the listing plans of the bank’s Hong Kong operations.