Beijing's top immigration official has been detained for questioning in the latest twist to communist China's biggest corruption scandal, which has already ensnared over 100 high-level bureaucrats and plunged the Chinese leadership into crisis.
Mr Xu Ganlu (37), director of the Ministry of Public Security's Entry and Exit Inspection Bureau, is the highest-ranking bureaucrat to be implicated in the alleged $10 billion fraud centred on the southern port city of Xiamen in Fujian province. The immigration head has been questioned since early January at an undisclosed location by investigators from the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, according to a report quoting government sources.
Mr Xu, head of immigration since 1996, is from Fujian province and a protege of disgraced Vice-Minister of Public Security, Mr Li Jizhou, an earlier target of the Xiamen investigation.
The son of a former Politburo member, Gen Liu Huaqing, has also been caught up in the scandal, along with Fujian's deputy police chief, Xiamen's top security official and its customs chief, a vice-mayor, several board members of a listed trading firm, and state bankers.
The number of people being investigated at a Xiamen hotel taken over by some 400 investigators is now said to be around 120.
Three of the seven members of the Politburo standing committee - the Prime Minister, Mr Zhu Rongji, Vice-President Mr Hu Jintao and anti-corruption chief Mr Wei Jianxing - have formed a high-powered task force to oversee the investigation, a Fujian government official said yesterday.
Hong Kong media reported that President Jiang Zemin had stepped in to try to contain the political fallout and that he had warned in an internal speech that "no senior cadres found guilty would be spared". Mr Jiang reportedly said: "Some graft-busters have told me they are frustrated because the smugglers have `powerful patrons'. But how can these patrons be a match against my will?" The President and party leader has given full support to the Prime Minister, Mr Zhu Rongji, who last summer threatened to resign unless Beijing investigated corruption in Fujian province.
But Mr Jiang has also pledged to stand by Politburo member Mr Jia, who is an old friend, despite criticism that as former party chief in Fujian he should bear some moral responsibility for the corruption-riddled state of the province. Observers say this could give leverage in any future power struggle to internal critics of the President, who is said to have defended Mr Jia as "a trustworthy Marxist who passes muster politically".
The tycoon businessman at the centre of the scandal offered last October to pay Mr Zhu Rongji up to 2 billion yuan (£160 million) for an amnesty, according to yesterday's South China Morning Post.
Mr Lai Changxing, president of Yuan Hua Group, who has fled abroad with his family, reportedly met Mr Zhu, told him he was guilty of evading tax, and asked him to name his price for an amnesty, suggesting, "one billion yuan . . . two billion?" When Mr Zhu returned to Beijing, he ordered Mr Lai's arrest, the report said.
Yesterday, a Communist Party official denied for the first time persistent reports that a member of China's 22-strong ruling Politburo and his wife were embroiled in the affair, which involves the smuggling of huge quantities of diesel fuel, crude oil, cars, high technology equipment, rubber and weapons through Xiamen.
Most of the reports have appeared in the foreign media since the scandal broke last week, and appeared to be confirmed when the Internet website of the official Guangzhou Daily reported on Tuesday that Mr Jia could be under investigation as his wife, Ms Lin Youfang, was involved.
Ms Lin headed the provincial government-run Fujian Import and Export Corporation when her husband was provincial party boss. Reports said he had divorced her on orders from the top. However, a party official in Beijing said yesterday that "reports linking Lin Youfang with the Xiamen smuggling case are not true".
Yesterday, the Guangzhou Daily website also rowed back on its own story and described Ms Lin as a "virtuous wife".