Police in southern China have arrested a murder suspect who became a millionaire during 29 years on the run, Chinese media reported Friday.

The suspect, surnamed Xiong, was wanted for the fatal stabbing of another man during a dispute in 1993, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Police from Xiangyang city in central China's Hubei province travelled more than 1,200 kilometres to the city of Huizhou in Guangdong province to make the arrest.

They led him out of his residence, where his elderly mother also lived, by posing as anti-pandemic workers, according to the video report.

Guangdong is in the grip of a spiralling Covid-19 outbreak, with the epicentre in its provincial capital of Guangzhou.

In the decades after his alleged crime, Xiong transformed from an ordinary worker to a millionaire boss living in a luxury flat, the report said, without revealing how he amassed his fortune.

"Now you know why we have come to find you," one police officer can be heard saying to Xiong outside the flat.

"It's time to pay back your dues."