Diplomat resigns amid bribe reports

Noted & Quoted in: The Globe and Mail, Page A8

Noted & Quoted by: The Canadian Press, Alexander Panetta

The Globe and Mail

Federal officials would not comment on an embarrassing report that outlined two alleged corruption schemes at the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

One involved the theft of Chinese passports with Canadian student visas, and the second involved a high-level official suspected of raking in a large amount of cash bribes.

"[He] has since resigned," Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Kimberly Phillips said of the official, who left the department last year.

"We cannot confirm or deny that an investigation is ongoing."

The key suspect is a Canadian of Chinese origin who was originally posted to the Canadian trade office in Shanghai in 1999 and later to the immigration section of the Canadian embassy in Beijing in 2001, the "Asian Pacific Post":http://www.asianpacificpost.com/news/article/195.html reports this week.

Ms. Phillips refused to identify the former diplomat or say what post he held or whether he has returned to Canada.

The former employee is suspected of tracking down applicants who had already been refused entry into Canada, meeting with them privately and offering to rubber-stamp their file in exchange for between $10,000 and $20,000, the newspaper reported.

"He is thought to have made well over a million dollars before he bolted a few days before his posting expired," the Post quoted one source as saying.

What most worries Canadian officials, the newspaper said, is the possibility that such an inside scheme might have allowed spies, gangsters or terrorists into Canada.

Preliminary investigations have linked the suspect to at least one Vancouver school specializing in teaching English, the Post reported.