Exclusive | Shanghai’s jailed top prosecutor ‘implicates 100 other officials in corruption case’
- Suspects implicated by Chen Xu are now under investigation
- Former prosecutor was given a life sentence for taking bribes worth more than US$10 million
The former chief prosecutor of Shanghai who is serving a life sentence for bribery has implicated about 100 officials linked to his conviction, a source familiar with the case has told the South China Morning Post.
Once dubbed the “law manipulator of Shanghai”, Chen Xu was sentenced on October 25 after a court in Nanning, the capital of south China’s Guangxi region, found him guilty of taking money and property worth more than 74.2 million yuan (US$10.7 million) personally or through family members between 2000 and 2015.
His downfall came amid a crackdown on corruption by the Chinese leadership and many of those implicated by him are now under investigation.
Chen’s conviction followed a sudden fall from grace last year. He was detained on March 1, the same day he made his last public appearance at a Shanghai law society event, and placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party’s main anti-corruption watchdog.
A Shanghai native, Chen spent his entire 38-year career working in the city. He started out as a court clerk before rising to become the top prosecutor in China’s financial centre in 2008.
People close to him described him as “very well-connected” and “able to get things done”, but others referred to him as a “wheeler-dealer”.
But his rise attracted a string of allegations of wrongdoing, including from the Hong Kong businessman Ren Junliang, who complained that the prosecutor had been abusing his power for economic benefit.
