An economic fugitive surnamed Zhuang said he would not have fled abroad if he had known the way things would turn out.

Zhuang, formerly a Guangzhou business representative, and his wife, surnamed Xu, fled to Myanmar in January after they had amassed more than 170 million yuan ($27.42 million) by counterfeiting land trading documents in Guangdong's provincial capital.

The couple were brought back to Guangzhou under guard on Tuesday.

Zhuang described life on the run as being full of hardship.

Guangzhou police formed a special task force to pursue Zhuang and Xu when it was reported they had fled abroad. They were apprehended by police in Myanmar on July 9 after Guangzhou police sought help from their Myanmar counterparts through the Ministry of Public Security.

Huang Shouying, director of the Economic Crimes Investigation Bureau at the Guangdong Provincial Department of Public Security, said Zhuang and Xu were just two of the many fugitives who have fled abroad but have since been detained and returned to China.

"Police in the southern province had, by the end of Tuesday, detained 57 economic fugitives who fled abroad and were involved in crimes totaling 2.3 billion yuan ($371 million)," Huang told a news conference on Wednesday.

Sixteen of the fugitives are suspected of taking part in crimes involving more than 10 million yuan.

Guangdong has topped the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China in the number of economic-crime suspects brought back from abroad since the beginning of the year, he said.

The suspects who fled abroad were mainly involved in fraud, illegal fundraising, accepting bribes, misuse of public funds and related economic crimes. More than 80 million yuan has been recovered.

Huang said police will continue to spare no effort to track down other economic fugitives from the province. He called on economic-crime suspects who have fled the country to return and surrender to police because the authorities "will never give up their determination, nor reduce their vigilance, to pursue and capture suspects who have escaped abroad".

Expansion of cooperation with foreign counterparts, improved intelligence gathering and analysis will track down these suspects, he said.

Meanwhile, police have offered rewards for tipoffs that help in the capture of suspects.

Peng Peng, a senior researcher at the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, said government departments should collect sufficient information to inform the countries and regions where fugitives are hiding while seeking to expand cooperation in pursuing and capturing them.

"Police and relevant departments can learn the whereabouts of escaped economic fugitives from their family members, relatives and friends, and call upon them to persuade the fugitives to surrender to the police and return to the Chinese mainland," Peng added.

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(China Daily 07/16/2015 page5)