BEIJING, Feb. 25 -- The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will continue to make its relationship with its Chinese counterparts as close as possible, a visiting senior official with the FBI said yesterday in Beijing.

    Thomas V. Fuentes, special agent in charge of international operations of the bureau, said the FBI and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security will hold a second working group meeting in Beijing in March.

    "It will include matters such as organized crime, cyber crime, economic crimes and other issues to make sure we are helping each other as much as we possibly can," he said.

    According to Fuentes, a first meeting was held in Washington in August and it is likely to become a regular occurrence.

    As an example of the growing association between US and Chinese law officials, he mentioned the extradition from Las Vegas to Beijing last April of Yu Zhendong, former branch manager of the Bank of China in Guangdong Province.

    China asked for US criminal judicial aid in November 2001 to repatriate Yu, who was accused of embezzling huge sums of money.

    "This is an example of individuals committing a crime - obtaining money illegally in China and then traveling to the United States," he said.

    He said the legal attache office for the FBI in Beijing, which opened in September 2002, is strictly for liaison purposes and is not conducting investigations.

    Fuentes is currently in Beijing as part of the US delegation to attend the fourth meeting of Sino-US Joint Liaison Group.

    Drug traffickers

    In another development, the United States and China agreed yesterday to expand co-operation in drug enforcement amid concerns that traffickers are using Chinese routes to haul heroin and other drugs from neighbouring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

    Yang Fengrui, deputy secretary-general of the National Narcotics Control Commission, and Karen Tandy, head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, signed a pact to allow the exchange of information on enforcement, drug trends, money-laundering techniques and trafficking organizations.

    Zhou Yongkang, director of the commission and minister of public security, said after meeting Tandy yesterday that China-US drug-fighting co-operation will be strengthened and made "all-around, reciprocal, practical and effective."

(Source: China Daily)