Some 26 were wanted in connection with crimes by the Hong Kong Police Force, 10 were listed as wanted by Macao police, one was wanted in the United States and the other in Germany.

"Guangdong police's good performance has frightened off overseas criminals who might have thought of coming to the prosperous province after committing crimes,'' the official said.

Guangdong police also had 17 suspected criminals who escaped overseas after crimes in the province returned to Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong and Macao.

"We made this achievement by cracking down on cross-border crimes in collaboration with our overseas counterparts in 2000,'' the official said.

Several suspected Guangdong criminals who were thought to have committed serious crimes and then escaped overseas have been arrested and extradited back to the province.

In January last year, Guangdong police recovered Wang Feng who had escaped abroad more than five years ago.

Wang, former deputy director of the Port Office in the city of Nanhai, was suspected of embezzling and misusing public funds valued at more than 28 million yuan (US$3.4 million).

In January the year before, provincial police recovered Pan Xisheng, Lin Hua and Yi Bin.

Pan, Lin and Yi had escaped overseas more than a year before after one person was killed and another injured in Guangdong.

In July last year, the force also arrested Lin Jincai and Chen Guoqiang, who had misappropriated 9.5 million (US$1.1 million) worth of public funds and then escaped abroad.

(China Daily 04/04/2001)