China’s former top domestic security official, Zhou Yongkang, has been arrested as part of a corruption probe, the country’s state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
Zhou — who had been one of nine members of China’s top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, before stepping down in late 2012 — was also expelled from the Communist Party, according to Xinhua, citing a decision made Friday at a meeting of the party central committee’s political bureau.
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The same report noted that investigators found that Zhou had affairs with a number of women, trading “his power for sex and money.”
“What Zhou did completely deviated from the (Communist) Party’s nature and mission, and seriously violated Party discipline,” Xinhua said, citing the statement from the procuratorate. His behavior “badly undermined the reputation of the Party, significantly damaged the cause of the Party and the people and have yielded serious consequences.”
