Ke had been working for the CCAFC’s 9958 Rescue Centre, which arranges emergency aid for critically ill children. He was detained and the case has since been handed over to prosecutors, the ministry said on Tuesday.
The charity has been placed on a blacklist of dishonest organisations, with operations suspended for three months.
“During the suspension period, the ministry will send a task force to make sure the rights of children being aided by the charity are well protected,” the ministry said.
The CCAFC deputy secretary, surnamed Wang, was also placed under investigation, according to the statement from the ministry.
Founded in 2010, the Beijing-based CCAFC is one of China’s most well-known charities for children. Public records show more than 150 projects under its belt, of which the 9958 Rescue Centre 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 tip-off and media reports”.
While it did not elaborate, the issue of likely donation fraud at the charity was first highlighted by internet users last September, when a post on the microblogging site Weibo claimed that an employee of the 9958 Rescue Centre had tricked families out of more than 10 million yuan with an empty promise of “matching donations”.
According to Chinese media group Caixin, “matching donations” used to be a popular grey zone tactic among charities, where staff would ask families for large donations. The funds would either be used for advertisements in return for public donation, or to ask private companies for donations, with a percentage of the returns going to the families.
In Ke’s case, the families were in urgent need of money and transferred the initial funds directly into his private account between June and August last year, only to be scammed, according to Caixin.
The children involved were mostly from Hebei Yanda Lu Daopei Hospital and Shandong Cancer Hospital, which treat severe diseases including leukaemia.
Following the online accusation, the CCAFC had issued a public statement saying Ke did not work with the charity but only acted as “short-term volunteer for 9958 in the Hebei area”.
Ke had been slapped with “compulsory measures” for suspected fraud in September and the case was now with judicial authorities, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Wang’s case was also with prosecutors following an investigation, the report said.
The CCAFC also became embroiled in controversy in 2020, after it said it had raised 1 million yuan for a young woman hospitalised due to malnutrition, but only transferred 20,000 yuan to the hospital before she died.
