Children's charity accused of embezzling funds

BEIJING - A children's charity on Monday was accused by a journalist of embezzling funds just days after being hit by the same accuser with accusations of laundering money.

Columnist Zhou Xiaoyun said Monday that the China Charities Aid Foundation for Children (CCAFC) only used about 1 million yuan (160,421 U.S. dollars) out of the 19 million yuan raised from a charity gala for an anti-human trafficking program called "Hope for Home."

The other 18 million yuan was, according to Zhou, transferred to Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation Beijing, a charity group set up by movie star Jackie Chan that supports poor children with serious illnesses.

Zhou said the money was intentionally transferred between the two groups to increase their expenditure records, of which 10 percent is routinely withdrawn in the form of management fees to pay some charity staffers.

The CCAFC responded by saying that the transfer was in line with the donors' intention, which was for the money to reach both "Hope for Home" and the Jackie Chan charity's programs.

The Jackie Chan charity also issued a statement Monday, saying it had an written agreement with CCAFC regarding the use of the money and that the group has been run completely on Chan's own expense, with no management fees occurred.

Both CCAFC and the Jackie Chan charity said they welcome public scrutiny, pledging continued efforts to promote transparency.

Earlier this month, CCAFC was accused of conducting money laundering activities involving about 4.8 billion yuan in 2011.

The group responded by saying that finance staffers had mistakenly listed 4.75 billion yuan in the foundation's cash flow statement when the amount should have been 475 million yuan.

A public accountant hired by the foundation said its cash flow statement was manually filled in instead of being automatically generated by finance software.