When police in China’s Guangdong Province cracked down on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials last week, they also arrested a prominent Chinese-American business owner Hu Weisheng, from Los Angeles.
The Guangdong provincial authorities dispatched over 300 armed police to Huizhou County and raided the Fuxing Company offices, owned by Hu. Officials said 43 people, including Hu, were arrested for alleged kidnappings, blackmail, arson, smuggling and operating illegal gambling operations.
Hu allegedly has a close relationship with Li Dawen, the Huizhou Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC) Party Secretary and chief of the Public Security Bureau, according to a report by the People Monitor Net, a media project dedicated to exposing government corruption. The PLAC, run by Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, is a vast and powerful security apparatus. The report claims that Hu once gave an official, who works in Li’s office, a $157,000 luxury car as a gift.
Guangdong Communist Party Secretary Wang Yang has reportedly been on the warpath to take down current and former CCP officials in the province, on allegations of corruption and misuse of power.
In early 2012, Guangdong provincial authorities received a report that Hu was involved in several murders, which caught the attention of Wang Yang. When Wang’s office attempted to probe the matter, the local Public Security Bureau, headed by Li in Huizhou, resisted and prevented an investigation.
Li, who was removed from his post as head of the local Public Security Bureau, has told investigators working for Wang that Hu has a good reputation overseas as an honest businessman and a leader within the Chinese community, according to the People’s Supervision Network report. “You'd better get things right and not crack down on the wrong person,” Li said.
Chinese media reports said that Hu maintains a U.S. passport and has an English name, Vincent Wu. He has a number of official titles including: head of the China Unity Association of Greater Los Angeles, CEO of a company in Huizhou, and manager of a wholesale grocery market. Since the 1990s, Hu has also allegedly been involved in criminal activity, but he still enjoys a good reputation as an overseas Chinese community leader and philanthropist, according to a local Party newspaper in Huizhou.
Political researcher Peng Peng of the Guangzhou Institute of Social Sciences told Hong Kong-based Ming Pao Daily that since Hu was reportedly involved in philanthropic and criminal activities, he enjoys a “protection umbrella” provided by very high-ranking officials.
The connections between Hu, a prominent member of the Los Angeles overseas Chinese community, and the security services in China are not unique. Over the years a number of reports have emerged that the PLAC has insinuated itself with overseas Chinese leaders.
Security czar Zhou Yongkang was reportedly behind an attack on Falun Gong practitioners in the New York City neighborhood of Flushing in 2008, according to sources familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity.
One individual said that Zhou sent his aide, Wang Minghua (an alias), to direct Chinese agents to attack Falun Gong practitioners in Flushing. Falun Gong is a meditation practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999.
Wang went back to Flushing in 2011, reportedly also at the behest of Zhou, to present a medal to Li Huahong, a woman who has been in court multiple times for attacking Falun Gong practitioners and runs a table distributing hate literature about the practice, for “Daring to Struggle.”
Read the original Chinese article.
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