China deports US suspected child sex abuser in law enforcement push to improve ties

China has handed over a fugitive American citizen to the United States as part of efforts by the two nations to strengthen cooperation on law enforcement.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday that it deported the American, who was only identified as "Scott" and wanted on suspicion of child sexual abuse.

According to state broadcaster CCTV, the suspect was handed to officers from the US State Department's Diplomatic Security Bureau at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Wednesday.

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Scott has been wanted by the US since 2014 and was the subject of an Interpol "red notice" in 2018. According to Interpol, a red notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.

The Chinese authorities located the suspect and detained him at the US' request, the report said, adding that the suspect did not commit any child sex crimes in China.

The deportation follows a US move in June to send two fugitives suspected of "serious criminal offences" back to China.

The US and China do not have an extradition agreement but Washington has handed over a few fugitives wanted by Chinese authorities since President Xi Jinping rolled out his anti-corruption campaign.

One of those deportees was Xu Chaofan, a former banker wanted in China for his involvement in the biggest corruption case in China's banking sector. He was sent back to China and jailed for 13 years for his role in the embezzlement and misappropriation of more than US$483 million.

China and the US have stepped up law-enforcement cooperation since Xi met his counterpart Joe Biden in San Francisco in November and agreed to work together in a number of areas.

In that time, senior officials from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and the US Department of Homeland Security have had several meetings to discuss law enforcement cooperation, including a number on narcotics that resulted in "important progress", according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The US has long urged China to help tackle the fentanyl crisis in the United States, particularly to target Chinese companies accused of selling fentanyl precursors around the globe. With the Xi-Biden summit, China agreed to curtail shipments of those precursors and took action against the companies involved.

In a video call between Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month, the two agreed to deepen cooperation on drug control, repatriation of illegal immigrants and combating transnational crime.

Last week, a total of 116 Chinese illegal immigrants were also deported from the US in the first large charter flight since 2018.

The US has had a surge in Chinese immigrants trying to enter the US from Mexico. More than 37,000 Chinese nationals were arrested on the southern border in 2023, 10 times more than the previous year, according to Associated Press.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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