BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese officials and law experts on Thursday applauded to a U.S. indictment against two ex-Chinese bank managers, which they consider a warning to over 4,000 corrupt Chinese officials that flee abroad.

    "It's a progress in China's efforts to call back fleeing corrupt officials," said Liu Wenzong, law professor of Foreign Affairs College. "They might notice the United States is no longer an ideal refugee."

    Last week, Xu Guojun and Xu Chaofan, two former managers at the Bank of China's Kaiping branch in the southern province of Guangdong, and their wives and one other relative were charged in Las Vegas with 15 counts of racketeering, money laundering and fraud.

    They allegedly transfer embezzled fund or do business with it and forge passports and visas, according to the indictment. The two managers allegedly defrauded 485 million U.S. dollars of the state-owned bank.

    The Bank of China is one of China's four biggest state-owned commercial banks.

    Wang Zhaowen, spokesman of Bank of China on Monday said the bank would cooperate with US investigators in solving the scam, while tightening its controls to prevent further graft.

    "It is an important cooperation-operation between law enforcement departments of the two countries," said Gong Xiaobing, head of Judicial Aid & Foreign Affairs Department of China's Justice Ministry.

    He said China-US cooperation-operation had succeeded in bringing in Yu Zhendong, a third corrupt banker of Kaiping branch, from the United States in April 2004.

    "The Justice Ministry will support and encourage further joint efforts between the two countries," Gong said, adding that China-US legal cooperation had run smoothly since 2000 when they signed a treaty of judicial aid.

    The three former managers of Kaiping fled to Canada and the United States via Hong Kong in late 2001 as they were suspected to be responsible for massive loss of the state-owned bank.

    Yu was sentenced to 144 months in prison in a federal court in Las Vegas in February 2004 over money laundering, entering the United States with forged documents, and immigration fraud.

    He was returned to China two months later on China's promise to exempt him from death. Before Yu, China's suspects of severe economic crimes had never been sent back from the United States through former law procedure.

    According to Chinese laws, grave economic crimes could lead to a bullet in the back of the neck. To avoid death, thousands of corrupt officials have fled abroad, especially the United States, where they could also lauder the embezzled funds.

    Some law experts in Beijing estimated that Guojun and Chaofan would be returned to China following the format of Yu's case, but Liu Wenzong said even they were not sent back the litigation was a ¡°shock" to China's fleeing corrupt officials.

    "It is a huge blow, as they will realize they cannot live at large after the graft, even if after fleeing abroad," Liu said.

    According to an estimate from the Ministry of Commerce, the 4,000-strong fleeing officials took away more than 50 billion U.S. dollars, few of which have been recovered.

    China has vowed to catch these officials with enhanced international co-operation.

    Liu said China could negotiate with the United States on how to handle the confiscated funds from Guojun and Chaofan as the litigation went on. Enditem