Is 'disappearance' of top female hedge fund manager another sign Beijing is tightening its grip on volatile market?

Beijing has tightened its grip on a financial market plagued by irregularities and left reeling from turbulence.

The latest effort involves the famous Chinese hedge fund manager Li Yifei, whose disappearance from public view in the past two days has prompted much speculation. Li is the chairwoman of the China unit of the Man Group, one of the world's largest hedge funds.

Bloomberg on Monday quoted a source as saying Li had been taken into custody by police to assist a probe into market volatility and her mobile phone had been switched off.

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"Foreign funds need to give information [to the authorities]. Because of the sensitivity of the meeting, all the participants must turn off their mobile phones and are not to contact the outside [without permission]," he told the website. The same day, Wang told another mainland news outlet, Caixin, that Li was at "a meeting in London".

In July, Beijing set up an investigation task force led by the Ministry of Public Security and financial regulators to crack down on illegal trading after a wave of panic sell-offs shocked domestic stock markets.

Wang said his wife was not responsible for the market rout. Bloomberg's report stressed the questioning of Li did not imply any wrongdoing.