Rural coops write off loans through fake death certificates

Three rural credit cooperatives in Shenzhou, Hebei Province, have been exposed as having written off loans worth 2.5 million yuan ($400,000), saying that the 58 debtors involved were dead or missing. However, many people listed are still alive and several are in prominent public positions, the Beijing News reported Monday.

Recent online posts said that Tangfeng, Bingcao and Weijiaqiao rural credit cooperatives wrote off loans of 43 people listing them as dead and 15 as missing. The Beijing News discovered that at least 13 of those listed as dead are still alive and 6 out of those said to be missing.

These people were not even aware their names were on the list.

Shenzhou's deputy mayor Wei Zhichun was listed as dead but told the Beijing News that he only discovered about the case from reading online news.

Wei confirmed that he borrowed 410,000 yuan on March 7, 1997 from the Bingcao credit cooperative for four months, and did not pay back the loan in time. Wei explained the money was borrowed for the township and used to cover the payment of teachers at local schools, when he was the head of Bingcao town.

Cui Peng, a deputy police head in Shenzhou, borrowed 32,000 yuan from the Bingcao credit cooperative in 1998. Cui also did not return the money, since the money had also gone to pay teachers.

Tian Liquan, chairman of the Board of Supervisors of the Shenzhou Rural Credit Cooperative Union, said that all these debts had finished procedures to be written off by last June. However, rules dictated that loan write-offs included certificates of death or of missing people.

However, the household registration police at Tangfeng and Bingcao police stations said they never released these certificates.

Zhang Lichao, another deputy police head of Shenzhou, said that no police station would do such a thing, unless they were bribed. "If they are caught fabricating certificates, they will be sacked and punished. No one will face that risk."

The heads of the three cooperatives have all been suspended from their duties, Tian said.

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