One of the suspects on China's list of the top 100 economic fugitives hiding abroad has been successfully repatriated from Malaysia, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced on Sunday.

Zhan Zaisheng is reported to have been brought back into the country during the National Day Golden Week holiday. The charges against Zhan include fraud. Chinese state media reported that he is accused of illegally accumulating up to 680 million yuan ($107 million).

Like Us on Facebook

Zhan reportedly fled to Malaysia in 2012. He was arrested by Chinese police in Malaysia before he was extradited back to China.

Zhan is not the first Chinese fugitive to be apprehended in Malaysia this year. In June, Shanghai police officers and Malaysian authorities collaborated to arrest a suspect identified as Guo. The former Shanghai-resident is accused of defrauding his employer of 6 million yuan ($945,000) through a bogus VAT refund scheme.

Malaysia is high on the list of places where Chinese authorities are searching for absconded officials. After Operation Fox Hunt was launched in July, teams of investigators were dispatched to various neighboring countries where wanted fugitives are suspected of hiding - including Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia.

More than a dozen fugitives on China's top 100 list have been arrested since the document was made public. In May, the Ministry of Public Security announced that up to 214 suspects had been returned to the country in 2015. In 2014, about 680 fugitives were repatriated.

The main difficulty in China's bid to mount a global hunt for runaway officials has been the reluctance of the U.S. and Canada to sign a criminal extradition treaty with Beijing. Analysts say one of the core issues preventing the government of these nations from signing a prisoner extradition treaty with China is their apparent concerns about human rights in the country as well as the use of the death penalty. Nonetheless, in September, the U.S. repatriated two top Chinese fugitives - Wang Jinjun and Kuang Wanchang. Some pundits presage that this could indicate a change in the status quo of the state of relations between both countries as far the extradition of prisoners is concerned.

Last month, after a Chinese fugitive was repatriated from Spain, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei revealed that China is "positively working" with several countries to deal with transnational crimes. "What we have achieved recently shows that our operation is gaining more and more support from the world, and that those perpetrators shall never get away from China's legal punishment no matter how far and how long they flee," he said.

TagsChina Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), Zhan Zaisheng, Malaysia, China-Malaysia Prisoner Extradition, Wang Jinjun, Kuang Wanchang, China Fox Hunt 2015