INTERPOL Chief Meng Hongwei missing

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PARIS (Reuters) - French police are investigating the disappearance of Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei, who was reported missing after traveling from France to his native China, and they have placed his wife under protection after threats, the interior ministry said on Friday. Meng’s wife contacted police in Lyon, the French city where the international police agency is based, after not hearing from him since Sept. 25, and after receiving threats by phone and on social media, the ministry said. A person familiar with the investigation into the disappearance said the initial working assumption of Western investigators was that Meng had antagonized Chinese authorities in some way and had been detained as a result.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-f...-idUSKCN1MF1BC

Interpol yesterday via Twitter emphasized that the Secretary-General was the key person, not the President; illustrating this with photos of his visits to members. I see the linked BBC News item refers to:

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Mr Stock oversees the day-to-day work of the 192-member organisation, with the role of the president largely ceremonial.

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Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45771813

Via the BBC:

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China has confirmed it is holding the missing head of Interpol, Meng Hongwei. Beijing said he was under investigation by the country's anti-corruption body for unspecified breaches of the law. Interpol said it had received his resignation from the presidency on Sunday with immediate effect.

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Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-45777681

Sounds like he pissed off the wrong people, which means he was probably doing an effective job.

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Ms Meng went on to detail a menacing phone call she had received at their family home in Lyon, France from a man speaking Chinese, days after her 64-year-old husband went missing. “He said, ‘You listen but you don’t speak. We’ve come in two work teams, two work teams just for you’.”

She said the man also warned: “We know where you are,” and that when she tried to ask a question, he repeated: “You don’t speak, you just listen to me.”

Mrs Meng and her children are now under French police protection and a judicial official confirmed an investigation had been launched to determine whether there were indeed Chinese teams sent to Lyon. She had previously told reporters that the last time she communicated with her husband was on 25 September, when he sent a knife emoji.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8576141.html

An interesting commentary on why the former Interpol President is in custody, as a famous actress confesses to tax evasion and the final passage:

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Western analysts have described the arrest of Meng as a “self-inflicted blow” to the Party’s legitimacy; in conducting a secretive investigation, the theory goes, China has hurt its international profile and damaged global good will. But it’s likely that, in Xi’s calculation, a political threat at home is far costlier than a few unflattering op-eds in the international press. His refusal to submit to international norms may even mark a brash attempt to build a new framework, one underwritten by might rather than by the perception of what is right.

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Link:https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily...-chief-vanish?

An unusually detailed review of how Meng Hongwei is not the first police senior official to be removed; I use unusual as the South China Morning Post (SCMP), based on Hong Kong has a new owner who has been criticized for being pro-Beijing.

The article ends with a SME's comment:

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(Professor)Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London and author of China in the Xi Jinping Era, said the most basic tenet of Xi Jinping Thought is strengthening party control. “With such goals it is unexceptional that Xi seeks to tighten control over the security apparatus and put his own men [almost exclusively] in charge of them, be it the People’s Liberation Army or the Ministry of Public Security or, for that matter, the other security apparatus.”

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Link:https://www.scmp.com/news/china/poli...ublic-security

An update:

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The former president of Interpol, confessed to accepting more than $2 million (£1.6 million) in bribes and expressed regret for his crime, a Chinese court said Thursday. The No. 1 Intermediate Court in the northeastern port city of Tianjin said Mr Meng read a statement containing the confession at a hearing. That move assures a conviction, although it isn't immediately clear when a verdict and sentence would be handed down.

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Link:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ery-case-amid/