How a robbery led to the downfall of Shanxi political heavyweight
Cover-up of worth of executive's stolen goods prompted graft probe in Shanxi, report says
A high-profile robbery at the home of the chairman of a Shanxi state-owned coal firm in 2011 triggered a chain of events that contributed to the downfall of a heavyweight provincial official, a magazine claims.
Caijing, a prominent mainland news magazine, reported yesterday that the handling of the robbery at the home of former Shanxi Coking Coal chairman Bai Peizhong prompted scores of retired senior provincial officials to file complaints against the then deputy provincial party chief, Jin Daoming.
The report, citing anonymous sources including senior Shanxi police and those who had knowledge of the coking coal company, revealed a complex network of top police officers, coal business executives and senior government officials.
Jin and his fallen associates are part of a larger graft crackdown in Shanxi that has so far netted at least seven senior provincial officials, including Jin himself and Ling Zhengce, brother of Ling Jihua, the former top aide to former president Hu Jintao.
The report said two robbers serving prison terms in Fenyang were escorted to Beijing in January. They were interviewed by agents from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), about their robbery of Bai's home in 2011.
More than 50 million yuan (HK$63 million) worth of property was stolen at Bai's 400 square metre home, according to a police whistleblower's email to the media at the time. But at the trial of the two robbers a year later, a local court said the stolen property was worth only 10 million.