Missing vice mayor facing corruption allegations

The vice mayor of Luoyang, central China's Henan Province, who has been missing for over a month, is wanted by police for alleged corruption, The Beijing News reported yesterday.

According to an unnamed source, Guo Yipin took bribes totaling 5 million yuan (US$814,000) from real estate developer Zhang Jinyuan in May 2012, the report said.

Guo was last seen on July 31 while inspecting flood-safety works. Southern Metropolis Daily reported at the time that he had asked for compassionate leave to take his mother to hospital in Beijing.

On August 5, however, The Beijing News reported Guo "missing," along with Yichuan-based real estate developer Yu Guoqiang and Yu's driver Zhang Zhenqiang.

According to the unnamed insider, Yu and Zhang handed themselves into Yichuan police on September 15.

The report did not say why they had done so, but claimed they told police that Guo had ordered them to help him flee Henan. The two men were quoted as saying they had since lost contact with Guo.

Anonymous sources said Guo's wife is also missing and that the couple's child had already fled overseas.

An unnamed local government official told The Beijing News that Guo colluded with developers when he was Party chief of Luoyang's Yichuan County from December 2007 to February of this year.

He is alleged to have taken bribes for giving the green light to their real estate projects. The losers in the deals were local people, many of whom allegedly received scant or zero compensation for land lost to developers, the report said.

Luo Xuedong was quoted by The Beijing News as saying the government seized more than 2.7 hectares of his farmland in 2011. His only remuneration was "a few thousand yuan per year," paid as a "rental fee," the report said.

When Luo appealed for justice in early 2012 he was locked up for eight days in a disciplinary education center, the report said.

The Beijing News report also claimed that Guo gave inside information about lucrative construction project investments to his father.