Yueyang City Public Security Bureau, in central China’s Hunan Province, is under investigation for issuing no less than 230 passports to human traffickers in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, the Beijing News reported Monday.

Liu Xiangjian, section chief of the bureau’s Entry-exit Control Department, fled to the UK on October 30, one day after he was questioned in connection with the issuance of passports.

An insider told the newspaper that the Yueyang PSB had been involved in issuing illegal passports since 1998, but its activities had accelerated since the second half of last year.

At the end of 2003, UK authorities found that the passports of many Chinese stowaways were issued in Yueyang. They reported their discovery to China's Ministry of Public Security.

From March 25 to June 25 this year, a nationwide campaign codenamed “Spring Thunder” was carried out by seven state ministries to crack down on illegal outbound service agencies.

During the campaign, when police in Xiamen, Fujian Province, uncovered a human smuggling organization they found large number of passports issued by Yueyang police. Although the Xiamen authorities liaised with their Yueyang counterparts, they were unable to obtain further information.

On October 23, police in Wenzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, found more than 230 illegal passports in the possession of a human smuggling group. Some 164 of the passports had been issued in Yueyang. The Ministry of Public Security ordered the Hunan authorities to investigate.

Liu Xiangjian, section chief of the Yueyang PSB Entry-exit Control Department, fled to the UK on October 30, one day after he, together with three vice section chiefs, was questioned by the Party Committee of the Yueyang Police about passport issuance.

On November 20, Zhang Lizhi, a vice section chief in the Entry-exit Control Department, was detained as a lead suspect, together with two other officers in her department. Zhang was subsequently reported to have died in an accident on December 9, while she was in detention.

But Zhang's mother told the Beijing News that her daughter was responsible for only one of many steps in the passport issuance process and she had no ability to issue passports herself.

Zhang's direct supervisor, Liu Xiangjian, oversaw the entire issuance process. Zhang's mother said that the head of the Yueyang PSB had once told Liu to take full responsibility for the case and not get others into trouble.

The PSB insider claimed that Liu confessed to having issued more than 230 illegal passports, for which he received 300,000 yuan (US$36,000) from a human trafficker.

But the trafficker, when questioned by police in Guangdong Province, confessed that he paid 150,000 yuan (US$18,000) for each passport in Yueyang.

Liu Guoqiu, director of Yueyang PSB, resigned from his post on December 7 and a new investigation team headed by Hunan’s provincial police authority has been formed.

All local Yueyang police have been instructed to have no involvement in the case, according to a senior official from the provincial police authority, as reported on Friday by the Beijing News.

The paper also quoted an official from Yueyang’s Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China as saying that the Yueyang prosecutor has ratified the arrest of fugitive Liu Xiangjian, and the State Ministry of Public Security is considering extradition.