Police raided Li's house in Changchun, the capital of the northeast province ofJilin, and found three Buddha statues bearing the likeness of Li, alongside six other smaller Buddha statues and incense from India, said the Guangming Daily.

They also found a 29-inch color TV, a hi-fi set, a leather sofa and seven high-quality watches, said the official Xinhua news agency.

The house which cost Li 116,00 yuan (US $14,000) also had modern office facilities, Xinhua said. Li was building another house in the same city, it added. One ledger showed that Li had received 116,649 yuan ($14,000) on May 4 in 1994, said the report which did not identify the source of the funds.

Li had planned to build a Falun Research centre in Huailai county in the northern province of Hebei on 60 hectares (148.2 acres), the report said.Reports of Li's``luxurious'' house were widely carried in Chinese media along with denunciations of the banned sect. Li had a political goal and aimed to overthrow the government, said Li Chongfu,a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in another Xinhua report. To achieve this political aim, Li used terms like `truth, benevolence and forebearance' to control and fool people, the report said.

``TLi Hongzhi said that he is the only master of Falun Dafa in order to dominate and govern his followers,'' it said. On July 29, Chinese authorities issued an arrest warrant for Li Hongzhi saying he had disturbed public order, and sought international cooperation from Interpol. But Interpol on Tuesday rejected the request saying it could not pursue political or religious cases.

Insight

China vows to step up campaign

BEIJING: China vowed on Friday to step up its campaign to eradicate the mystical Falun Gong group and said ``a small number'' of followers of exiled guru Li Hongzhi have refusedto give up their beliefs, the state press reported.

``Though the fight against the Falun Gong cult has mitigated the bad effects of the fallacies of Falun Gong or Falun Dafa, the pernicious influence of Li Hongzhi and his fallacies is still alive among some of his followers and needs to be eradicated,'' the People's Daily said in a front page editorial. The paper said a small number of communist party members, cadres and intellectuals continued to maintain faith in the group despite widespread denunciations in the state-controlled media since it was banned two weeks ago.