FIVE people, including a foreign citizen resident in Hong Kong, will appear in a public trial tomorrow in a court in the central city of Wuhan with Mou Qizhong, accused of being the biggest swindler on the mainland.
The Beijing Morning Post said yesterday that Mou and his five associates had illegally obtained US$75 million (HK$581 million) in foreign exchange from a state bank between August 1995 and July 1996.
The Tianjin branch of Mou's Nande Group obtained the money through the Hubei Light Industry Import and Export Corporation, which pretended to import 150 million yuan (HK$130 million) worth of products and presented 33 six-month credit documents to the Hubei branch of the Bank of China.
The newspaper said that of the five, four were employees of Nande, and the fifth, Wang Xiangjun, was a businessman with foreign citizenship who lived in Hong Kong. It did not give his nationality.
Nearly 100 reporters have permission to cover the trial.