China’s blacklists noted children’s charities more than 10 million yuan fraud

Ke worked for CCAFC’s Rescue Center 9958, which organizes emergency aid for seriously ill children. He was detained, and the case has since been handed over to the prosecutors, the ministry announced on Tuesday.

The charity was placed on a rogue organization blacklist, with operations suspended for three months.

“During the suspension period, the ministry will send a task force to ensure that the rights of the children helped by the charity are well protected,” the ministry said.

The deputy secretary of CCAFC, surnamed Wang, was also placed under investigation, according to the ministry’s statement.

Founded in 2010, Beijing CCAFC is one of the most well-known children’s charities in China. Public records show more than 150 projects under its belt, of which the 9958 Rescue Center is one of the biggest – raising a total of 220 million yuan in 2022 and helping more than 10,000 children.

The ministry said it launched investigations after “a public briefing and media reports”.

Although he did not elaborate, the issue of possible donation fraud at the charity was first highlighted by netizens last September when a post on the microblogging site Weibo claimed that an employee of the 9958 Rescue Center had defrauded the families of over 10 million. yuan with an empty promise of “matching donations”.

According to Chinese media group Caixin, “matching donations” were a popular gray area tactic among charities, where staff ask families for large donations. The funds would be used either for advertising in exchange for a public donation, or to solicit donations from private companies, with a percentage of the proceeds going to the families.

In Ke’s case, the families were in urgent need of money and transferred the initial funds directly to his private account between June and August last year, only to be cheated, according to Caixin.

The children involved were mostly from Hebei Yanda Lu Daopei Hospital and Shandong Cancer Hospital, which treat severe diseases including leukemia.

Following the online allegation, CCAFC issued a public statement saying that Ke did not work with the charity but only acted as a “short-term volunteer for 9958 in the Hebei area”.

Ke was slapped with “compulsory measures” for the alleged fraud in September and the case was now before judicial authorities, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Wang’s case was also with prosecutors following an investigation, the report said.

CCAFC was also embroiled in controversy in 2020 after it said it had raised 1 million yuan for a young woman hospitalized for malnutrition, but only transferred 20,000 yuan to the hospital before she died.