The execution of four businessmen in Shantou has finally shed light on China's largest tax and corruption scandal to date, which had been brewing in the eastern Guangdong port city in the past year.
The executions on Friday were followed by a blitz of state media reports that, for the first time, detailed the nature and extent of the rot in Shantou.
They put the scale of the Shantou scandal in perspective, allowing it to be compared with two other 'largest-ever' scandals uncovered in recent years - the Zhanjiang smuggling ring broken up late in 1998 and Xiamen's Yuan Hua smuggling case, which came to light late in 1999.
That something was amiss in Shantou became apparent last summer.
According to Beijing's version of events, an accidental fire at a Shantou government guesthouse on July 15 killed five people, including two corruption investigators from the Guangdong Disciplinary Inspection Commission.
Just one month later, 300 central government investigators descended on Shantou and appropriated as their base camp the guesthouse where the fire had occurred.