China businessmen bailed in cash-laundering probe: source

A Spanish court today freed a Chinese businessman accused of leading one of the country's biggest money-laundering scams after he posted bail of 400,000 euros (USD 440,000), a judicial source said.
Gao Ping was arrested in 2012, accused of leading a gang that allegedly laundered 300,000 euros ($330,000) a year, dodged taxes, bribed officials and forged documents.
A source at the National Court in Madrid told AFP a judge there granted Gao conditional release after he paid the bail sum today.
The judge confiscated his passport and ordered him to check in with the court weekly, the source said, without giving further details.

Spanish news agencies citing Gao's legal team said members of the Chinese community clubbed together to raise the 400,000 euros for his bail. His lawyers could not be reached by AFP today.
Gao, aged in his late forties and reportedly from Zhejiang in northeastern China, owned art galleries in Madrid and Beijing plus businesses in Cobo Calleja, a huge Chinese trading estate in southern Madrid.

He was arrested in October 2012 along with about 80 other suspects, mostly Chinese but also including Spanish police officers, authorities said at the time.
Police said they seized 10 million euros in cash during raids on the network as well as guns, jewels and art works.

The court freed Gao a month later over procedural irregularities before taking him back into custody in April 2013 as a flight risk, pending a complex judicial investigation.