Four senior officials from an Inner Mongolia unit of the mainland's largest coal producer, Shenhua Group, have been detained by police at a Beijing hotel for allegedly hiring prostitutes with company funds, state media reported.
Wen Heping, the deputy party secretary and head of the disciplinary inspection committee at state-owned Shenhua Group Zhungeer Energy, had led the group of four for sex in a hotel in the Asian Games Village in the northern outskirts of the capital, according to Xinhua.
The other three senior officials included employee union chief Jin Yongwen, Beijing office director Ma Ridong and general office director Liu Zhiqiang.
The four allegedly used company funds to pay for sex, Xinhua quoted unnamed people familiar with the case as saying.
Shenhua Group Zhungeer Energy had stripped the four cadres of their party memberships, it quoted a company spokesman as saying. Liu and Ma had been fired, it added. It did not mention Wen and Jin's employment status.
The report did not provide the amount of allegedly misused company funds. No one answered the telephone at Shenhua Group Zhungeer.