A SUBBRANCH of the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) in Shenzhen said Sunday that it was innocent of any wrongdoing in a fraud case that has recently been in the media limelight.

    In 2003 a Hong Kong man, identified as Tse, withdrew 7.8 million yuan (US$1.26 million) from an Agricultural Bank of China account without permission from his mainland business partner, identified as Yang Liubao.

    The bank said that it followed required procedures to allow a depositor to withdraw the money from the account.

    The announcement was made after a recent CCTV report that said Yang, who is in the cashmere business, discovered that 7.8 million yuan had been withdrawn from his bank without his knowledge.

    The bank’s announcement quoted two court verdicts that said the bank was not at fault at any point in the process.

    The bank was taken to court by Yang in 2002, but the court ruled in favor of the bank in the first and second trials.

    One court verdict said that Yang, head of the Qingfa Cashmere Factory, opened an account for the factory at the Renminbei subbranch of ABC in 1999, along with Zhong Cheng, a manager with the Shenzhen Xiewei Cashmere Products Co. and Hong Kong businessman, surnamed Tse.

    The account received 7.81 million yuan from an export agent shortly after being opened. Money was withdrawn from the account 18 times between 1999 and 2001 with documents provided by Zhong Cheng, according to the bank.

    The bank said the documents Zhong used to withdraw the money were with the official stamps of the factory and Yang, and the stamps were identical to those left in the bank when Yang opened the account.

    Hence the court ruled that the bank was at no fault.

    Police started an investigation after the CCTV report Saturday night.

    A police source was quoted by yesterday’s Southern Metropolis Daily as saying that although Yang was the owner of the account, but Tse was actually operating it. Tse deposited the money into the account to purchase cashmere to sell it to a U.S. client. The U.S. client rejected the fabric over a quality dispute and asked for a refund. After the rejection, Tse took back the money he had originally put into Yang’s account.

    The police source said it was simply an economic dispute.

    Tse was arrested in 2012. Police allegedly gave Yang two options: Yang could either drop the case against Tse and Tse would repay Yang 3 million yuan, or Yang could pursue the case against Tse legally and receive no money back, according to the report.

    Yang chose to drop the case in return for his money. But after dropping the case, Tse refused to give the money back to Yang as promised and the police said they could do nothing because the case had been dropped, according to the CCTV report. (Han Ximin)