Zhou Yongkang before relinquishing power in 2012. He is accused of bribetaking, leaking secrets and helping his allies enrich themselves at state expense. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — Zhou Yongkang, the once-feared head of China’s domestic security, has been expelled from the Communist Party and arrested, the official state news agency announced early Saturday, disclosing a barrage of charges that included bribetaking, helping family members and cronies plunder government assets, and leaking official secrets.
The announcement signaled the biggest move so far in President Xi Jinping’s two-year campaign to curb graft and malfeasance in the party hierarchy. Mr. Zhou, 72, became the first member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee, retired or active, to face criminal investigation on suspicion of corruption.
The decision by the Communist Party Politburo, a council of 25 senior officials, to expel Mr. Zhou and place him under a legal investigation made it all but certain that he would face trial, conviction and a heavy sentence from one of the party-run courts that were once part of his political fief.
The Xinhua news agency, which issued the announcement, said the Politburo had made the decision on Friday.
“Zhou Yongkang’s actions were totally in contravention of the party’s essence and mission,†said the report, citing the Politburo decision. “This has severely damaged the party’s image, and brought major damage to the affairs of the party and the people.â€
Mr. Zhou stepped down from power in November 2012, at the same congress that appointed Mr. Xi the party’s leader. For five years starting in 2007, Mr. Zhou held a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body, and he ran a committee overseeing the police and domestic security forces, as well as courts, prosecutors and prisons.
Soon after Mr. Zhou’s retirement, Mr. Xi and his allies started corruption investigations that targeted Mr. Zhou’s bases of power, especially Sichuan Province, in the southwest, and the country’s biggest oil and gas conglomerate, the China National Petroleum Corporation, where Mr. Zhou had risen to become a general manager.
State news outlets have said the party’s investigation of Mr. Zhou, which was announced in July, showed Mr. Xi’s determination to eradicate graft that had taken deep root in the government over previous decades.
But the charges now revealed against Mr. Zhou also appear likely to alarm people, because they suggest that China’s police and other domestic security agencies were controlled by a deeply corrupt politician.
The investigators found that Mr. Zhou “exploited his position to obtain unlawful gains for multiple people, and directly or indirectly through his family took massive bribes,†the Xinhua report said.
In addition, the report said, Mr. Zhou “exploited his powers to help relatives, mistresses and friends make massive earnings through their business activities, creating massive losses for state-owned assets.â€
Mr. Zhou also disclosed party and state secrets and traded favors and money for sex with multiple women, the report said.
The announcement did not reveal further details behind the charges against Mr. Zhou. But the accusations that he exploited power to enrich family members and friends appeared to refer to Mr. Zhou’s longstanding influence in the energy sector.
An investigation by The New York Times documented that Mr. Zhou’s son, a sister-in-law and his son’s mother-in-law held assets worth about 1 billion renminbi, or $160 million, much of it in the oil and gas industries.
In China, criminal investigations of officials on corruption charges usually only start after party investigators have finished their inquiry. Mr. Zhou is now exceedingly unlikely to escape trial, conviction and a heavy prison sentence.
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