¡¡  BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Foreign courts approved the extraditions to China of 53 suspects charged with economic crimes last year and the return of alleged smuggler Lai Changxing from Canada is imminent, the Ministry of Public Security said Tuesday.

    "Any criminal suspects fleeing to abroad and evading punishment will be brought to justice," said Wu Heping, spokesman for the ministry. "It's just a matter of time."

    Wu declined to answer questions on Lai's anticipated deportation, but he promised to "inform the media on related developments soon."

    Lai is accused of leading a ring which had conducted, in collaboration with corrupt officials in Xiamen City, the biggest smuggling operation uncovered in China since 1949. The case involved goods worth 10 billion U.S. dollars.

    Lai fled to Canada with his family in 1999, where he has since been trying to gain refugee status.

    Chinese police had strengthened cooperation with foreign counterparts to prevent criminal suspects fleeing abroad, and the efforts "have paid off," said Gao Feng, deputy director of the ministry's Economic Crime Investigation Department, on Tuesday.

    "About 800 suspects wanted in connection with economic crimes are residing in foreign countries," said Gao. "In the last two years more than 320 have been repatriated, in connection with cases involving nearly 70 billion yuan (875 million U.S. dollars) worth of property and funds."

    The United States had also extradited a Chinese criminal suspect as a result of judicial cooperation.

    Yu Zhendong, former head of a Bank of China branch in the city of Kaiping, fled to the U.S. before being tried in connection with 82.5 million U.S. dollars that disappeared from the bank. Yu was returned to China in 2004 after the government agreed he would not face execution. Earlier this year, a court in the southern province of Guangdong sentenced Yu to 12 years in prison for embezzlement.

    Chinese police are also negotiating with their Dutch counterparts for the return of Yang Xiuzhu, a former official in East China's Zhejiang Province, who has been charged with taking bribes. Enditem

    80 economic crime cases transferred to police in 2005

    Chinese auditors transferred 80 cases involved in economic crimes to police last year, up 63 percent from 49 ones in 2003, the Ministry of Public Security and National Audit Office said. Full story

    Police crack over 60,000 economic crime cases

    China's police busted more than 60,000 cases of economic crimes last year.

    The Chinese police arrested more than 50,000 suspects involved in these cases and retrieved 14.3 billion yuan (1.79 billion U.S. dollars) of economic losses, said Gao Feng, deputy director of the economic crime investigation department of the Ministry of Public Security. Full story