AS Beijing police ruled out any link between the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) and an infamous Internet celebrity who dragged the charity into a credibility crisis three years ago, the charity said yesterday it hopes its sullied reputation could be rehabilitated.

    In 2011, a young woman, Guo Meimei, used social media to claim she was a manager of an organization under the charity, openly flaunting her wealth and extravagance.

    Her posts triggered concern over how donations are used by the country’s State-run charitable organizations and dealt a major blow to the reputation of the RCSC, which has been struggling to win back trust since the scandal.

    Guo, 23, was arrested for participating in illegal World Cup gambling July 10 and admitted recently that the charity had nothing to do with her, Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

    In a statement yesterday, the RCSC said the scandal has undermined the trust system in China and pledged to fulfill its commission in a more transparent way.

    Yao Lixin, the spokesperson for the RCSC, said every citizen of China was a victim of Guo’s deceit as “the case undermined charity activities in China.”

    “We hope the result can not only bring justice to the RCSC, but also give all of society a chance to rebuild trust,” Yao said.

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    It said it is very hard to eliminate the influence of rumors and doubts from the past three years, but in a key time of rescue work on the Yunnan earthquake, “please forget Guo Meimei.”

    The RCSC has 110 years of history, the statement said, and would keep improving its brand building capability, information sharing and management, and provide better aid for the public.

    Beijing police said Sunday that Guo had confessed to her crimes, including being deeply involved with illegal gambling and spreading rumors about the RCSC.

    She said that her identity as the “general manager of the Red Cross Chamber of Commerce” was fake and she claimed ignorance as to why she used it.

    “Actually, none of my relatives and friends, including my ex-boyfriend, Wang Jun, were staff members of the RCSC. I also didn’t know anyone from the Red Cross,” Guo said. “I made a huge mistake to gratify my vanity.”

    “I want to say sorry to the Red Cross, all of society, and especially to all the people who cannot get aid from the Red Cross [because of my false claims],” she said.

    According to police, Guo’s wealth came from illegal gambling, a small number of paid personal appearances and the sex trade.

    They added that Guo opened a gambling den in Beijing with a foreign gambler in 2013 and invited people to visit. Guo received a return of 3 to 5 percent of the gambling fund after each session.

    According to Xinhua, the key figure of the RCSC scandal - whose name was reportedly Wang Jun - was detained July 24 by police in Beijing. Wang confessed that he had been in a sexual relationship with Guo at the time and that he had invested in Zhonghong Bo’ai Company, which was launching a project with the Commerce Sector Red Cross, an organization affiliated with the RCSC. He said that Guo wanted to be the CEO of the company.

    “She [Guo Meimei] is a nightmare for me,” Wang said in an interview aired on CCTV on Sunday.

    Guo called Wang her “nominal father” in her Weibo post in 2011, saying her wealth was from him.

    Guo first acquired notoriety in 2011 after flaunting her expensive jewelery, Birkin handbags and a Maserati on the Internet. Her real undoing came after media uncovered her reported ties to Red Cross, which has since been mired in series of controversies regarding corruption.

    Police said Guo, who claimed to be a manager of an organization called “Red Cross Commerce,” had no links with the NGO.

    However, despite the scandal, her antics did not stop.

    In April, Hong Kong-based Eastweek reported that she had been put on a creditor list after losing 260 million yuan (US$41.63 million) in Macao. Yet a month later, she found a new beau who paid off half her debts.

    Her recent posts on Weibo were about the World Cup, rooting for Brazil and Neymar. In one of her posts June 11, she admitted to betting on aicai.com. That post has since been deleted.

    On June 15 she wrote: “I am so heartbroken. I have lost so much today.”

    (SD-Agencies)