Three more Shanxi officials probed for graft

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-08-30

Bai Enpei, one of the numerous Shanxi officials to be placed under
investigation in the ongoing anti-graft campaign. (Photo/CFP)

Bai Yun. (Photo/CNS)

Three senior officials in northern China's Shanxi province have been placed under investigation for "serious disciplinary violation" since Friday. Five of the 13 members of the province's central standing committee have now been probed by disciplinary inspection commission, our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily reports.

Deputy head of the Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee of the National People's Congress Bai Enpei, Shanxi CPC Standing Committee member Bai Yun and provincial vice governor Ren Runhou, have been under investigation for "serious discipline and law violations," according to the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the central Communist Party watchdog.

Bai Yun is from the Shanxi city of Yuncheng, the same hometown as Lin Zhengce, former vice chairman of the Shanxi Political Consultative Conference who has been placed under investigation accused of engaging in sexual relations with a local businesswoman named Hu Xin and her younger sister Hu Lei. Bai was Yuncheng's party secretary before becoming head of Shanxi's United Front Work Department and a member of the standing committee in early 2013.

Between 2003 and 2006, Bai was the deputy party secretary of Luliang. The area's officials have been seriously shaken by Beijing's anti-corruption campaign with five incumbent or former deputy city-level officials being placed under investigation.

The 68-year-old Bai Enpei was a friend of Sichuan mineral tycoon Liu Han, who was given the death sentence in May this year for leading a "mafia-style" gang that authorities say deployed 36 agents, murdered nine people and amassed 40 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion) in assets through dubious means. Bai worked as Yunnan province's party secretary for ten years before becoming the environmental committee's deputy head.

Ren worked in various mining and coal administrations between 1992 and 2010. He was appointed Shanxi's vice governor in January 2011. The offenses of which he stands accused have not been revealed to the public.