Top National Energy Administration official held in widening graft probe

Xu Yongsheng, deputy administrator of the National Energy Administration (NEA), has been "taken away" by authorities as part of a sweeping investigation into corruption in the energy sector, according to a newspaper report.

Xu is the highest-ranking energy official to be detained since Liu Tienan, former head of the NEA and deputy chief of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), was held last year.

A number of high-ranking energy officials have been caught in the anti-graft probe of the energy sector - one arm of a wide-ranging anti-corruption effort spearheaded by China's leaders.

Authorities detained Xu along with another official with the NEA's new energy department, whom the report, in the 21st Century Business Herald, a bi-weekly mainland newspaper, did not name.

Xu entered the civil service in his early twenties at the state planning commission and worked his way up the ranks.

He was appointed to his current post in 2012.

The charges against Xu are not known, but investigators found more than 100 million yuan (HK$125 million) in cash at the home of Wei Pengyuan, one of his subordinates.