• Internacional.Taobao, the 'Chinese eBay', auctioned a skyscraper that was half built for almost 71 million euros
  • Chronicle: Guo Wengui, the Chinese billionaire who from the US threatens the corrupt of the Chinese Communist Party

The iconic building number 5 of the Pangu Plaza complex, a dragon-shaped tower located very close to the Olympic area of ​​Beijing, China, was sold on Tuesday at an auction for some 5,187 million yuan (663 million euros), local press reported.

The buyer was the Beijing real estate promotion company Beijing YuCheng Zhiye , according to the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post . This building belonged to tycoon Guo Wengui , one of the richest in China until his escape in 2014 to avoid an investigation for corruption; since then he is exiled in the United States .

The auction was organized by a Pekingese court and was conducted through the Taobao e-commerce portal, where it has received more than 144,000 visits since the information was published on that website.

However, only two users registered to participate in the auction , which ended today at 10.00 local time (02.00 GMT), as a bail of 1,000 million yuan (128 million euros) was required to access it.

Taobao had valued the building at about 7,920 million yuan ( 1,013 million euros ), that is, at half the price of office buildings of the same characteristics that are located in this area north of the Chinese capital.

The 39-story tower houses a luxury hotel and the Chinese headquarters of the US IT giant IBM . The proceeds from the auction will be used to settle a debt of more than 3,000 million yuan (384 million euros) contracted by Beijing Zenith Holdings, the company of Guo, with the Bank of Shanghai and an investor of that city. He had already tried unsuccessfully to get rid of the building twice, when he found no buyer.

Interpol issues an arrest warrant

Guo is considered next to the former Minister of Public Security and former head of Chinese espionage Ma Jian , sentenced in December 2018 to life imprisonment for corruption, involvement in forced transactions and use of privileged information . According to investigations, Ma would have used his influence to benefit Guo.

Since his exile in New York , the tycoon has launched numerous accusations of corruption against important figures of the Chinese communist regime in press interviews or on social networks, although without providing evidence.

In April 2017, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant against him for corruption , something Guo rejected by claiming that the accusations against him are "pure lies" that respond to a revenge of the communist authorities

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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