A Henan tycoon once listed as the mainland's 80th richest man has been detained on fraud charges. Sun Shuhua - former chairman of the Hualin Plastic Group and Henan Ancai Hualin Chemical Construction Materials, and a delegate to the Henan People's Congress - was suspected of defrauding several banks of 1.36 billon yuan and was detained on Monday, Xinhua reported. In 2004, British researcher Rupert Hoogewerf's Richest People in China list put Mr Sun at 80th with an estimated wealth of US$170 million. 'An initial investigation showed that between 2000 and 2005, Hualin and Ancai Hualin secured loans of 1.36 billion yuan from an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Henan, the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank's Zhengzhou branch and Citic Bank's Zhengzhou branch,' the report said. Before the investigation into Mr Sun, the two firms had stopped production and applied for bankruptcy, Xinhua said. Police found more than 29 million yuan missing and 34.5 million yuan transferred to personal accounts, including 17 million yuan to Mr Sun's account. 'As the richest man in Henan ... Sun Shuhua's success depended on borrowing money from banks,' the Henan Business Daily said. It said Mr Sun received 450 million yuan from the Agriculture Bank months before Ancai Hualin was set up and issued a business licence. He secured the loans by repeatedly putting down 20 land use certificates, amounting to a total area of 627 hectares, as guarantees. The two land use certificates shown to the Citic Bank's Zhengzhou branch and the Agriculture Bank's Huiyang county branch in Henan as security were later found to be forged, the report said.
