Advertisement

China’s ex-Interpol president Meng Hongwei jailed for 13½ years for corruption

  • Country’s first head of global policing agency abused his past positions in China to receive US$2 million in bribes between 2005 and 2017, Chinese court rules
  • Meng disappeared in 2018 before the Communist Party’s anticorruption watchdog confirmed he was under investigation

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Meng Hongwei is sentenced in Tianjin on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
Teddy Ngin Hong KongandKinling Loin Beijing
The former head of the international policing agency Interpol was sentenced to 13½ years in jail for corruption by a Chinese court on Tuesday, state media reported.
Advertisement
In a trial at Tianjin No 1 Intermediate People’s Court, Meng Hongwei, the first person from China to become president of Interpol, was also fined 2 million yuan (about US$290,000), state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Meng, 66, said he would not appeal, the report said. It said that between 2005 and 2017 Meng had used privileges in his positions as vice-minister of public security and chief of China’s maritime police to receive bribes totalling 14.46 million yuan (US$2.1 million).

“The court rules that Meng Hongwei has committed bribe-taking offences and should be punished by law,” read the verdict, published online by the Supreme Court of China on Tuesday.

“The court has made the judgment after taking into consideration that Meng Hongwei has proactively turned in most information about the charges that the authorities were not able to obtain, and that he has admitted to the charges and that some of the bribes could not be retrieved.”

Advertisement
Advertisement