More Red Cents

Last month my colleague Susie Jakes wrote about her surprise that Shanghai party officials said they had been able to track down every last cent of the $407 million that disappeared in the Shanghai pension scandal. Today a story came out in the South China Morning Post that might help explain how that was possible. Former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu, who was taken down in the scandal, had a stock portfolio that had ballooned to worth more than $38 million due to the roaring growth of the Shanghai stock market, the paper reported. The Shanghai Composite Index grew by 130% last year, so if some the funds Chen allegedly embezzled were well invested, it would have made it a bit easier to recover the original amount. They might even have come out ahead.