China National Coal manager under probe
A top manager at China National Coal Group Corp has reportedly been arrested for gambling with company money in Macau.
Zhang Baoshan, one of three deputy general managers at the nation's second largest coal producer, was arrested last month for allegedly taking funds from G-Ocean Energy Group, a subsidiary of China National Coal, and gambling with it in Macau, according to the Economy and Nation Weekly, a magazine run by state-owned Xinhua.
The report said Gao Jinghai, the former chairman of the largest privately owned coal enterprise in Shuzhou city in Shanxi province, was also arrested.
Telephone calls to China National Coal's general office were not answered, while an official at G-Ocean's general office would only say that Gao had not been chairman since last September when China National Coal injected three billion yuan (HK$3.42 billion) into G-Ocean and took a 60 per cent stake.
According to a report by Shanghai-based International Finance News, Zhang was spotted by mainland authorities in a VIP casino room in Macau and was taken away to assist investigations upon his return to the mainland in November. He was formally arrested last month, it said.
The report said Zhang suffered a career setback when Wang An, the former head of rival Shenhua Group's largest coal unit Shendong Coal, was appointed to head China National Coal in October 2008. Until then, Zhang had been the acting general manager of the firm.
According to a company statement, Zhang resigned as vice-chairman of China National Coal's Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed unit China Coal Energy on November 18 'out of personal reason'.
