Photo: IC

From 2014 to October this year, 8,363 overseas fugitives have been caught in over 120 countries and regions and sent back to China  under China's anti-corruption "Sky Net" operation, with 20.8 billion yuan ($3.18 billion) in illicit funds recovered.

Of them, 2,212 were Communist Party of China members and government employees, 357 are "wanted" on the Interpol Red Notice list, and 60 are on the 100 most-wanted Red Notice of Chinese fugitives, according to a Monday report by Zhongguo Jijian Jiancha Bao, a newspaper run by China's top anti-graft watchdog — the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI).

China's "Sky Net" operation is an important campaign deployed by the central anti-corruption coordination group in April 2015 to track down fugitives suspected of involvement in graft, prevent corrupt officials from fleeing abroad and recover illegal gains.

To pursue the fugitives at large overseas, China has reached important consensuses with members of the UN, G20, APEC and BRICS, and actively participated in anti-corruption cooperation under these multilateral frameworks, according to the report.

China has established 169 extradition treaties and mutual legal assistance treaties with 81 countries as of November, and set up a preliminary anti-corruption cooperation network worldwide, the CCDI announced in November.

The CCDI also released detailed information on 22 and 50 fugitives who allegedly engaged in corrupt acts or economic crimes in 2017 and 2018, respectively, to encourage foreigners and overseas Chinese to monitor fugitives' behaviors and convince them to return to China