A vice-mayor in Guangdong province is being investigated in a high-profile case involving his alleged connections to local drugs gangs, and his over-ruling of local police actions involving the gangs.
According to a statement from the Qingyuan Party commission for discipline inspection, Zheng Beiquan, the deputy mayor of Yingde and director of the city's public security bureau, was suspected of breaking various laws to help relatives and friends.
Zheng, 41, a native of Guangdong's Qingxin county, has been put under shuanggui, a procedure in which a Party member is asked to confess to wrongdoing at a stipulated time and place, the statement said.
"Relevant departments have officially been asked to further investigate the case," said sources with the Qingyuan Party commission for discipline inspection on Wednesday.
But an official from the Party publicity department of Qingyuan said that administrators in Yingde refused to reveal further details.
"The findings will be made public when the investigation is finished," he said.
The case first made headlines after Xie Longsheng, deputy director of the Yingde bureau of public security, and Zhu Yingzhong, commissar of the bureau, reported Zheng's connection to gangsters to the appropriate government departments in late September.
Xie and Zhu said Zheng was acting as the "protective umbrella" for a local drug gang.
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