As many as 18,000 corrupt mainland officials may have fled the country with as much as 800 billion yuan in ill-gotten gains in less than two decades, according to a study released by the central bank.
The money was secreted out of the country between the mid-1990s and 2008, according to the report by the People's Bank of China's anti-money-laundering monitoring and analysis centre.
The document, not originally intended for public consumption, depicts the likely extent of the problem of officials and executives from state-owned enterprises absconding with embezzled funds and bribes, long the subject of speculation.
In addition to assessing the extent of the lost capital, the report also detailed the perpetrators' main routes of escape, money-laundering methods and the risks they posed to the country. Hong Kong has been widely used as a springboard for corrupt officials to flee to Commonwealth countries, it said.
'A relatively large number of defectors passed through Hong Kong and made use of the SAR's status as an international aviation hub, as well as the privilege for Hong Kong people to apply for visas in Commonwealth countries upon arrival, to flee to other countries,' it said.
It said lower ranking officials who took relatively small amounts of money tended to flee to nearby countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Mongolia and Russia.
Higher-ranking corrupt officials, with cases involving larger sums, tended to escape to developed countries in the West such as the United States, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. Those who were unable to obtain papers to travel directly to Western countries first holed up in small countries in Africa, Latin America or Eastern Europe as a transition measure.