Bo Xilai’s police chief Wang Lijun kept ‘blackmail list’
Top cop who served under jailed senior Communist Party official used information to intimidate and extort money from officials, says anti-graft agency
Wang Lijun, the former police chief who served under the jailed Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai, allegedly kept a dossier of government officials’ “dirty secrets” to intimidate them, according to an official magazine affiliated with the party’s top anti-corruption body.
The latest issue of China Discipline Inspection, published monthly by the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection, revealed details of graft inspectors’ search for leads and how they dodged steps taken by suspects to thwart their investigations.
A police officer interviewed by the magazine said that a local officer who once worked under Wang said Bo’s former lieutenant was an expert in manipulating people by finding out their dirty secrets and using the information for blackmail if necessary.
The local officer gave the example of Lei Zhengfu, a disgraced Chongqing district official who was sacked after a sex tape recorded by Lei’s mistress in 2007 appeared online in 2012. Wang knew of Lei’s improprieties long before they were made public, but pretended not to know about them so that he could blackmail Lei at more opportune time.
The officer also said that at social gatherings like dinners, Wang would often point to a particular person – in front of everyone present – and say “you know that I know all about you. I’m telling you, you have to cooperate with me”.
The report also shed light on obstacles investigators faced with suspects from the public security agencies. It took “courage and wisdom”, for example, to investigate former Tianjin public security bureau chief Wu Changshun .