Former Shanghai Police Chief Sentenced to Life in Prison For Corruption

What’s new: Shanghai’s former top cop was sentenced to life in prison for corruption Wednesday, the same day the ex-police chief of Chongqing was sent away for 15 years, state media reported.

Gong Daoan, 58, Shanghai’s former deputy mayor and head of the city’s public security bureau, accepted more than 73.43 million yuan ($10.4 million) in bribes between 1999 and 2020, according to Tangshan Intermediate People’s Court in North China’s Hebei province. He was accused of taking advantage of his position to help others get promoted and for other favors while working in a variety of government posts in Shanghai and Central China’s Hubei province.

Deng Huilin, 57, a former public security chief and vice mayor of the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, was sentenced to 15 years of prison and fined 4 million yuan by a court in Baoding, Hebei, according to the court’s announcement (link in Chinese). The court found that Deng accepted more than 42.67 million yuan in bribes between 1999 and 2020.

The courts said Gong and Deng were given lenient sentences because they confessed and provided investigators with new facts pertaining to their cases.

The background: In August 2020, Gong was put under investigation by the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country’s top corruption investigator, two months after Deng fell under a similar probe.

The two men were linked to the “political clique” of fallen former Deputy Public Security Minister Sun Lijun. 

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use.

Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)

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