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Red Cross stuck in the firing line

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A new page created by the Red Cross Society of China on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-style social networking service, on Monday was meant to reach out to the public. Instead, in the latest development in a fierce online campaign against the mainland's biggest charity, it ended up being swamped by indignant comments.

Many demanded the refund of donations, while others wrote that they would never give another nickel to the Red Cross Society, which has been targeted for a perceived lack of transparency in the wake of a bizarre, ongoing saga involving a young female blogger, fast cars and murky business connections.

The charity's troubles can be traced back to a 20-year-old woman known in cyberspace as Guo Meimei. Photos of Guo on her Weibo microblog under the name Guo Meimeibaby- photos that showed her posing with a Lamborghini and a Maserati convertible she claimed to drive as well as a collection of designer handbags- began to circulate on the internet around June 20.

Her microblog also claimed she had been, since May, general manager of the Red Cross Chamber of Commerce, an apparently non-existent organisation which many assumed must be a subsidiary of the Red Cross Society. Cue widespread indignation that a woman purporting to be a Red Cross employee could afford such a luxurious lifestyle.

Online vigilantes then began combing cyberspace for information about Guo and her possible links to the Red Cross Society. In the process they discovered that several private businesses had been involved in murky deals with Red Cross China Business System, a business arm of the Red Cross Society controlled by a Beijing marketing consultancy.

They also tracked the licence plate of the Lamborghini in the pictures to Wang Jun, a man in Shenzhen who turned out to be Guo Meimei's boyfriend, according to his business partner, Weng Tao. Weng also revealed that Wang had been on the board of Zhonghong Boai Assets Management, a company that worked with Red Cross China Business System selling advertising space on Red Cross ambulances.

Wang, he added, bought the Maserati sports car registered in Beijing under Guo Meimei's name.

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