An investment manager of a local insurance company who fled to the US on suspicion of "rat trading" has returned to Shanghai and handed himself in, police said yesterday.
The 41-year-old man, surnamed Liu, allegedly traded stocks using another person's account ahead of, or in synchronization with, investment decisions concerning a company account that was his responsibility.
The volume of the illegal trading, which lasted from January 2014 to February 2015, amounted to 120 million yuan ($18 million), and the alleged profit in the personal account from the trading was a "few hundred thousand yuan," police said.
After being questioned by the securities regulators last December, Liu fled Shanghai at the beginning of this year, taking his two children with him.
Police said they talked to his wife, who had remained in Shanghai, and she had persuaded her husband to turn himself in.
Liu Wenbo, the police officer in charge of the case, said the suspect could be charged with illegal transactions and could face up to 10 years in prison and be fined five times the amount of the illegal profit, according to Chinese law, but if the court accepted that he had turned himself in, he could receive a lighter sentence.
The owner of the account involved in the illegal transactions was exempted from any charges because he was considered to be unaware of any illegal dealings.
