{UAH} Will shoot him? - Chinese - Lt. General in £3BILLION corruption scam?
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The Chinese soldier with the Midas touch: Senior officer in £3BILLION corruption scam 'bribed officials with Mercedes cars full of gold bars'
- Gu Junshan alleged to have personally accepted £63million in bribes
- Case is allegedly connected to that of former politburo member Xu Caihou
- President Xi Jinping has launched a sweeping campaign against graft
By Reuters and Damien Gayle for MailOnline
Published: 13:50 GMT, 8 December 2014 | Updated: 14:05 GMT, 8 December 2014
A former senior Chinese military officer would bribe officials by filling up a Mercedes with gold bars and simply handing over the keys, it is claimed.
Gu Junshan, 57, former Lieutenant General in the logistics department of the People's Liberation Army, is alleged to have been part of a scam worth a staggering 30billion yuan (£3.1billion).
Prosecutors claim he personally accepted about 600million yuan (£63million) in bribes himself, mainly for the alleged sale of hundreds of military positions.
Midas touch: Former PLA Lieutenant General Gu Junshan would bribe officials by filling up a Mercedes with gold bars and simply handing over the keys, according to a recent magazine report in Hong Kong
Gu also loved gold, especially gold statues of Buddha, though he preferred receiving ground up gold rather than gold bars when he was taking bribes, according to a report in Hong Kong's Phoenix Weekly.
The magazine is run by Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix Television, which has close ties with the Chinese government.
'Gu got exactly what he wanted,' a person with knowledge of the probe told the magazine.
Gu was first charged with corruption in March. His case is connected to Xu Caihou, who retired as deputy head of the powerful Central Military Commission last year and from the China's decision-making Politburo in 2012.
Xu's graft probe was announced in June.
Pheonix Weekly said Gu had powerful patrons, though did not name Xu directly, referring only to a person called 'X', Reuters reported.
Gu's patron: Xu Caihou, who retired as deputy head of the powerful Central Military Commission last year, has also been charged with alleged corruption
It has not been possible to reach either for comment and it is not clear if they have lawyers.
Gu is alleged to have shared much of the spoils of his scams with Xu, his superior, including giving a 20million yuan (£2million) debit card to Xu's daughter as a wedding present, the South China Morning Post reported.
He is also accused of pocketing a 6 per cent kickback from a 2billion yuan (£200million) sale of military land
President Xi Jinping has launched a sweeping campaign against graft since becoming party chief in late 2012 and president last year, vowing to take down powerful 'tigers' as well as lowly 'flies'.
He has made weeding out corruption in the military a top goal. China's People's Liberation Army is the world's largest military force, with approximately 2.285million servicemen and women.
China's defence budget is the world's second biggest, estimated at between $120billion and $190billion a year annually. This is still dwarfed by the U.S., which spends at least three times as much by all estimates.
Serving and retired Chinese military officers have said military graft is so pervasive it could undermine China's ability to wage war.
The latest allegations have emerged days after reports that a woman major-general with a senior post at an army university was being investigated.
Gao Xiaoyan, Communist Party boss of the discipline committee at the PLA Information Engineering University, was arrested on November 27 and her house searched and sealed off, financial news magazine Caixin said.
She is suspected of taking bribes related to a construction project at a military hospital, added the report, which was widely carried by Chinese news websites.
The purges comes as President Xi steps up efforts to modernise forces projecting power across the disputed waters of the East and South China Seas, though China has not fought a war in decades.
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