Ling Jihua’s son died in a high-speed Ferrari crash in Beijing in March 2012 that also left two women passengers seriously injured, one of whom was naked, according to media reports.

Photographs of the crash were briefly circulated online at the time, sparking questions about how the son of a government official could afford a luxury sports car worth a reported five million yuan.

The father kept his post in the ruling party’s 205-member central committee, but failed to rise to the next level – the 25-person Politburo – and was given a lower-profile job heading the party’s United Front Work Department.

The party’s leadership appointments are decided in an opaque process that analysts say depends on backroom deals between competing factions, often based on regional or family ties.

The fall of Ling’s brother – whose post carried vice-ministerial rank – has sparked speculation that an investigation against Ling himself, once a right-hand man of former President Hu Jintao, was probably looming.

The official Xinhua news agency published a commentary on one of its verified Sina Weibo accounts last Friday, comparing the probe into Ling Zhengce with the fall of a brother of former railways minister Liu Zhijun.

Liu was later sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve – a penalty normally commuted to life imprisonment – for taking 64.6 million yuan in bribes.

Officials who have been put under investigation in recent years “have built up corrupted families using their blood or marital ties”, the article stated, according to a repost.

The original was quickly deleted, but it was widely reproduced by other Chinese media outlets, including the People’s Daily Online, the website of the party’s official mouthpiece.

The commentary said such individuals would “eventually bring disgrace and ruin upon themselves just as the Liu brothers did, no matter how high-ranking their post was or how powerful they were”.