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File photo of Yang Xiuzhu. (Beijing News)
A former deputy mayor of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province who fled China with hundreds of millions of yuan is expected to be extradited from the Netherlands, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Extradition procedures for Yang Xiuzhu, who was responsible for corruption cases involving as much as 253 million yuan ($41 million), have been launched.
Yang's case was first publicly exposed when her brother was investigated in a bribery case in 2003 and she became nicknamed the "queen of corruption." That April, she escaped to the US together with relatives.
Yang then headed to Singapore before eventually finding herself a "safe" location in a dark and humid basement in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. However, after Interpol issued a red notice in February in 2004, Yang was eventually detained in the Netherlands in 2005. China then entered into prolonged negotiations with the Netherlands on her return, but they have been hampered by the lack of an extradition treaty.
According to the authorities in Wenzhou, a total of 42.4 million yuan has been retrieved from Yang's case, another 70 million yuan worth of capital and real estate properties had been frozen.
Yang is one of the 102 economic fugitives that China is about to retrieve or has already retrieved after launching "Fox Hunt 2014" in July this year, a special campaign aiming to bring suspects in economic crimes and corrupt officials who had fled abroad back to the country for justice.
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