Businessman blackmailed officials after filming them having sex, say reports

Reports say more Chongqing officials probably implicated in sex-tape scandal

Amy Li

BIO

After graduating from the University of Missouri with a master's degree in journalism, Amy Li began her journalism career as a crime news reporter in Queens, New York, in 2004. She joined Reuters in Beijing in 2008 as a multimedia editor. Amy taught journalism at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu and started an environment blog, Green Bullet, before joining SCMP in Hong Kong. She is now an online news editor for SCMP.com. Amy can be reached at chunxiao.li@scmp.com.

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Lei Zhengfu. Photo: SCMP

Using young women as bait, Chongqing businessman Xiao Ye lured at least a dozen Chongqing officials into a “honey trap”.

He secretly videotaped them having sex with the women. Xiao then demanded the officials give him lucrative government contracts, China’s Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Former Beibei district party chief Lei Zhengfu told police about the blackmail in 2009 following threats from Xiao, the report said.

Chongqing police seized the videos and arrested Xiao. The careers of some of the officials were not intially affected by the incident. Several actually got promoted after 2009, the report said.

Xiao was caught after a whistle-blower released a sex-video clip forcing Lei Zhengfu to step down last November.

It turned out Lei was not the only victim. At least 10 mid-ranking Chongqing officials have been sacked amid reports more might be implicated in the sex-video scandal.

The city's official news portal said on Thursday night the sacked officials included Jiulongpo district party boss Peng Zhiyong, Bishan county party chief Fan Mingwen, Changshuo district government head Han Shuming and state-owned Southwest Securities' board director Luo Guang.

On Friday, Chinese netizens were discussing the scandal on Weibo, China’s twitter-like service.

“Xiao is an anti-corruption hero,” said one netizen, “Why arrest him?”

“We should make a film about it,” said another.