'House Sister' associate accused of having 12 houses

A bank official and former colleague of "House Sister", who owns 41 houses in Beijing, bought at least 12 apartments himself in the capital city, a news report said.

Yang Liping, vice-president of the Shenmu Rural Commercial Bank in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, has 12 apartments in the Sanlitun Soho development in Beijing, according to a report in the National Business Daily.

The houses are jointly owned by Yang and his wife, who has three hukou, the report said.

The hukou is China's permanent residence registration and personal identification system. One person may have only one legitimate identity and hukou record.

Yang also has many houses in Hainan province, the report quoted an anonymous source as saying.

Yang's former colleague, "House Sister" Gong Aiai, a former vice-president of Shenmu Rural Commercial Bank, had 41 houses in Beijing with a total area of 9,666.6 square meters, Beijing police said last week.

At least 10 of Gong's apartments and an Audi car were bought with her fake hukou identity, and the police found that she had four hukou. The properties that Gong purchased with her fake IDs have been seized by police, but the police have not found her yet.

Gao Yin'e, Yang's wife, was a business partner of Gong. They jointly own a house that was rented to a company, and the company sued them in September because the house roof leaked water, which delayed the opening of the company's business, according to the Chaoyang district court in Beijing.

Yang and his wife did not respond to the allegations through the media as of press time.

All reports about Yang on the bank's website have been deleted, and China Daily's phone calls to the bank went unanswered on Monday.

Many netizens accused Soho China Ltd, one of China's leading real estate developers, of helping Gong launder money because Soho has sold many houses to Gong and Gao.

Soho China Chairman Pan Shiyi on Friday called the allegations "nonsense", adding that the company cannot tell the difference between authentic and fake ID cards.

"As a company, we can only believe the information publicized by the government," he said on his micro blog.

In a separate case, an anti-graft official in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province was found to be the owner of at least 15 houses with his ex-wife.

Zhang Xiuting, political commissar of the anti-corruption bureau of Xi'an district of Mudanjiang city, obtained the large number of houses through illegal channels, a whistle-blower said on his micro blog in mid-January.

Zhang and his ex-wife own a total of 19 houses, among which four of five under the name of Zhang were inherited from his mother and 14 others were under the name of his ex-wife, a preliminary investigation showed. Zhang has been transferred from his current post and further investigation is under way.

Zhang said that the local Party's disciplinary agency has talked with him about the house issue. He claimed that he divorced his then-wife years ago, but many employees working at her company said that they still appear together as a couple at many occasions, according to a report in the Southern Metropolis Daily.