By Jin Dongjie& Zhong Liuyi

　　In July 2024, Lin Qiaobo, a police officer from the Economic Crime Investigation Division of the Wenling Public Security Bureau, Zhejiang province, paid a proactive visit to a packaging company and discovered significant mismanagement of its sales department. The sales accounts were unclear and financial affairs unsupervised. Without delay, Lin issued an "Enterprise Risk Prevention Proposal"to the company, highlighting the underlying risks that the firm should pay attention to in its growth and putting forth specific precautions.
　　As per the proposal, the company immediately launched a self-evaluation and correction campaign, uncovering that salesperson Chen, who had been with the company for five years, had abused his power. The company instantly reported the case to the police.
　　The police soon initiated an investigation, finding that Chen had embezzled company funds by falsifying business orders, and managing to recover the total loss of more than 700,000 yuan. "But for Officer Lin’s timely identification of our mismanagement, we would have suffered even greater losses,"said the company’s boss. Ultimately, the suspect was sentenced to two years in prison for the crime of job embezzlement and six months for the crime of forging company seals, with a combined execution of two years and two months.
　　"The private sector has been a major driving force of Wenling’s economy. Therefore, it is our duty as police officers to safeguard the development of local businesses,"Lin says.
　　Lin is one of the first "Anti-Corruption Officers for Enterprises"selected by the Zhejiang Public Security Department. He is also a co-founder of the Wenling Public Security Bureau’s "Police Officer for Common Prosperity", an initiative to assist local enterprises and communities with common prosperity.
　　Together with his team, Lin followed the guidance of "11087 – Clean Enterprise"program by the provincial police department and set up a dedicated office in the Fortune Spring real estate project in Zeguo Township, Wenling, to facilitate their service supply to enterprises. The office focuses on spotting and disrupting economic crimes detrimental to private enterprises.
　　Lin and his team prepared "high-quality instructional materials"about how to effectively prevent the abuse of power in the private sector and introduced a "double-list, double-check"approach for preventing corporate corruption. This approach guides enterprises to launch self-inspections and corrections, winning wide recognition from the business community.
　　The double lists refer to the "Check List for Potential Employee Corruptions "and the "Check List for Prevention of Embezzlement". The former is designed to help enterprises check potential corruption risks involved in sales, production and procurement. If any misconduct is identified a company can either rectify it by itself or come to police officers for help. The latter is created to allow police officers to check if an enterprise has an anti-corruption system, a position monitoring mechanism, and an anti-corruption training program in place. If any wrongdoing is detected, police officers will issue an "Enterprise Risk Prevention Proposal"to help the enterprise carry out timely rectifications.
　　Based on their anti-corruption efforts in the private sector, Lin and his team devised the "4+3+1"framework, which the Zhejiang Public Security Department has ranked among the 10 best practices for helping enterprises with their healthy development. This framework contains four key steps to prevent and fight corporate corruption, three platforms to guarantee timely access to policing services, and one dedicated service team to lead the overall efforts, effectively establishing a "cocoon"against corruption for local enterprises.
　　In 2024, Lin and his team visited 1,370 enterprises and provided training for more than 500 corporate executives and key technical personnel. They also cracked more than 10 cases of economic crimes, including abuse of positions and misappropriation of funds, recovering a total loss of over 2.13 million yuan for affected companies. Their success in solving the power abuse case involving Chen was named by the provincial police department as one of the top 10 typical operations in the "Escort 2024"campaign.
　　Since 2024, the Economic Crime Investigation Department of Zhejiang Province has fixed their eyes on local enterprises’ concerns, establishing a team of "Anti-Corruption Officers for the Enterprise"to help address these concerns. Based on their hands-on experience and successful operations, they have developed a "1234"mechanism, meaning one team in place to guide their work, two channels (online and offline) to deliver their services, three vital roles to play, and four key links (pre-operation, in-operation, post-operation, and private sector governance) to form the entire workflow.
　　1. Establishing a specialized team. The Economic Crime Investigation Department of Zhejiang Province has built the team of "Anti-Corruption Officers for the Enterprise"into a recognized brand, and assigned the team three key functions to combat corporate corruption. They act as fighters to crack down on corruption cases, as publicists to raise awareness and prevent potential corruption, and as facilitators to foster joint governance of the private sector. Up to 124 politically reliable and highly skilled economic crime investigators across the province have been selected to join the task force, providing services for enterprises province-wide. By building a reservoir of professional talent, the team has effectively overcome talent shortages, equipping them to answer the needs of enterprises.
　　2. Improving working mechanisms. The Economic Crime Investigation Department has formulated and issued the "Selection and Management  of Anti-Corruption Officers for the Enterprise"and "Work Guidelines for Anti-Corruption Officers". Based on these practices, they have established several working mechanisms: a prevention and early warning mechanism that is implemented through regular awareness campaigns and targeted warnings about potential risks facing a post; a coordination mechanism for crime fighting in which the dedicated team tackle the toughest aspects while police and enterprises collaborate as a supporting force; a post-operation risk review mechanism, which involves the case summary and the follow-up on the effects of the anti-corruption efforts; and a private sector governance enhancing mechanism, which contains early warnings, timely reminders and constructive comments and suggestions. By adhering to these working mechanisms, these officers coordinate with inspection and judicial authorities, market and financial supervisors, lawyers and accountants, among other professionals from all walks of life, to eradicate corruption in the private sector.
　　3. Leveraging data for enhanced governance. While stepping up efforts to carry out the offline training program for tens of thousands of corporate senior executives and increase the influence of brick-and-mortar offices and publicity centers, the Economic Crime Investigation Department has given full play to the integrated App "Guarantee Enterprises Safety for Shared Prosperity", which leverages big data to protect enterprises from risks. The App empowered police officers to identify potential risks in enterprises and help them improve internal management. The department has also developed the "Business Anti-Corruption Support"module and embedded it into the App. The module, available in both enterprises- and officers-oriented versions, boasts features such as online courses, legal consultations, case studies, officer training, issue discussions, and think tank support to provide technical aid for enterprises to improve their internal governance and for police officers to sharpen their professional competence.
　　Guided by the working mechanisms of the "Anti-Corruption Officers for the Enterprise"program, the "Escort 2024"campaign by the Zhejiang Public Security Department to combat corruption in the private sector has achieved significant progress and yielded fruitful results, significantly contributing to the creation of an optimal business environment.
　　1. Safeguarding enterprises more effectively. To launch an anti-corruption operation, the provincial police department normally convenes a provincial meeting to set up a dedicated task force, prepare to-do lists and timetables, and designate  responsibilities to ensure all tasks are well executed. These efforts have resulted in a coordinated anti-corruption landscape that involves related authorities at the provincial, city and county levels. In 2024, the department filed 1,737 cases of corporate corruption, and solved 1,298, arrested 1,997 suspects, and recovered losses of more than 920 million yuan for affected enterprises. They eyed textile, building, and other traditional industries, as well as emerging sectors like the platform economy, new energy, and new materials for potential corporate misconduct, successively launching eight intensive operations with all criminal suspects detained. These operations turned out to be a strong boost to private sector governance, helping curb the spread of crimes.
　　2. Advancing corporate governance aid. The provincial police department has visited a total of 104,000 enterprises, covering all firms above the designated size in their jurisdiction. They have assisted 2,028 vulnerable businesses through a paired assistance program, addressing 5,061 issues with corporate governance. They transformed some of their offices, which served as the liaison between police officers and enterprises, into training bases, where they tried to deliver anti-corruption and integrity education for new employees of key positions, helping enterprises establish an ethically sound workforce. They carried out the training program for tens of thousands of corporate senior executives, with more than 20 provincial-level "high-quality instructional materials"available online. Up to now, a total of 6,438 training courses have been delivered to 21,000 senior executives and 62,000 key personnel. Additionally, 494 copies of the "Risk Prevention Notice", "Risk Prevention Proposal"and "Risk Early Warning Letter" have been issued to help enterprises improve their internal management, close emerging risk loopholes, and remove the root causes of issues, winning high acclaim from the business community.
　　3. Gaining recognition for extending best practices. The "Anti-Corruption Officer for the Enterprise"program has captured much attention and recognition from enterprises and society since its launch. During the national awareness day for the prevention of and fight against economic crimes on May 15, the Zhejiang Public Security Department held a press conference to explain the achievements of the program, which received extensive coverage from dozens of major national and provincial media outlets. At the conference on how private enterprises should safeguard their interest and rights, hosted by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce in April, the department, as the sole representative of national public security agencies, delivered a speech to introduce this program. At the video meeting on planning anti-corruption efforts in the private sector in June, the department shared its valuable experiences of implementing the program. In November, the "11087 – Clean Enterprise", a business-serving brand designed by the Zhejiang Public Security Department, was ranked among the top practices at the 7th World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Convention.■
　　
　　（ Translated by Zhan Yanzhou ）