For a week, several Chinese media outlets, including Caixin and Finance.QQ, have published lengthy investigative reports on the shady dealings that real estate developer, Guo Wengui, has used to accumulate a fortune. Guo has complicated relationships with Chinese Communist Party officials, including former vice minister of state security Ma Jian. Ma is presently under investigation during the nation-wide anticorruption movement that leader of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping started.
Back in 2006, in order to get a development authorization for some Olympic park land in Beijing, Guo Wengui conspired with Ma Jian in a plot that removed Beijing’s former vice mayor Liu Zhihua from office. They used “a 60-minute video of Liu engaging in under-the-table dealings and extra-marital affairs.” According to Caixin, “Several sources said that Ma, then assistant to the minister of state security, helped Guo get the video of Liu.” Liu had refused to help Guo get the development permit he needed to build the Pangu Plaza by the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium in Beijing. “The fight over the Olympic park land proved Guo had a successful partnership with officials like Ma, a strategy he repeatedly used to build his fortune in the following years.”
Sources: Caixin and Finance QQ, March 24 – 30
http://china.caixin.com/2015-03-30/100796183.html
http://weekly.caixin.com/2015-03-27/100795235.html
http://finance.qq.com/original/lenjing/gwg0324.html
http://finance.qq.com/original/lenjing/wlht.html