South Korean police said Tuesday that they have deported two Chinese suspects in separate criminal cases back to China in the latest case of cooperation between the two nations' law enforcement authorities.
South Korea's National Police Agency (NPA) said one of the suspects, a 42-year-old woman whose identity was been withheld, was apprehended on Sept. 30 in a motel in western Seoul.
The woman had been wanted by Chinese police on suspicion of swindling 5 billion won (US$4.7 million) from a real estate investment company in her homeland.
Another suspect, a 44-year-old man who was otherwise unidentified, was nabbed a day earlier in Incheon, a port city west of Seoul.
He was to face questioning by Chinese police over allegations of pocketing 20 million won from Chinese citizens who had believed he would provide them with South Korean visas.
Both of them had been on China's priority watch list, the NPA said, adding that the recent extraditions are attributable to last month's bilateral agreement calling for expanded cooperation between the South Korean and Chinese law enforcement authorities.
Under the agreement signed in South Korea, the two sides agreed to broaden the priority watch list from 10 suspects to 30.
The watch lists have been in place since last year, when South Korea extradited three suspects to China and received four in return.
Last May, China extradited an alleged hit man in a high-profile contract killing case here in which a city councilor hired a man to murder a millionaire.
"Under the principle of reciprocity, we are devoted to finding suspects wanted by China," said a South Korean police official.
"Those who commit crimes in China will no longer be able to set foot in South Korea." (Yonhap)
