Four senior officials from an Inner Mongolia unit of the mainland's largest coal producer, Shenhua Group, have been detained by police at a Beijing hotel for allegedly hiring prostitutes with company funds, state media reported. Wen Heping, the deputy party secretary and head of the disciplinary inspection committee at state-owned Shenhua Group Zhungeer Energy, had led the group of four for sex in a hotel in the Asian Games Village in the northern outskirts of the capital, according to Xinhua. The other three senior officials included employee union chief Jin Yongwen, Beijing office director Ma Ridong and general office director Liu Zhiqiang. The four allegedly used company funds to pay for sex, Xinhua quoted unnamed people familiar with the case as saying. Shenhua Group Zhungeer Energy had stripped the four cadres of their party memberships, it quoted a company spokesman as saying. Liu and Ma had been fired, it added. It did not mention Wen and Jin's employment status. The report did not provide the amount of allegedly misused company funds. No one answered the telephone at Shenhua Group Zhungeer. Sex scandals involving mainland government officials appear from time to time in state media. They are often also linked to corruption allegations that are sometimes motivated by party in-fighting. According to a survey by the mainland's top prosecutor's office in 2007, about 90 per cent of the country's most senior officials sacked for corruption charges in recent years had kept mistresses. Central Organisation Department Minister Li Yuanchao, who runs the organisation that controls the party's senior appointments, last month told cadres to dump mistresses, avoid hostess bars and shun luxury. It was part of efforts to rein in corruption that threatens legitimacy of the party's rule. Exposed sex scandals involving prominent state company bosses are fewer compared to other government officials, although many have been implicated in bribery cases. A recent high-profile sex and corruption scandal involved Chen Tonghai, the former chairman of the nation's second-largest oil and gas company, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec). He was given a suspended death sentence in July this year for taking 195.7 million yuan (HK$222.3 million) in bribes and was found to have shared a mistress with more than a dozen senior government officials. The implications for Shenhua Group's Shanghai and Hong Kong-listed unit, China Shenhua Energy, is uncertain. Its spokesman could not be reached. According to information posted on an executive search website, Shenhua Group Zhungeer Energy is part of China Shenhua Energy and was renamed Shenhua Zhungeer Energy during the latter's Hong Kong listing in 2005. China Shenhua Energy's annual report listed Shenhua Zhungeer Energy as a 58 per cent-held coal and power production subsidiary. It contributed around one-sixth of China Shenhua's total output last year. Unofficial affairs Sex scandals involving officials are often also linked to graft charges Percentage of senior officials sacked for corruption who had kept mistresses: 90%