Police chief sacked over mistress scandal

URUMQI - A police chief in northwest China has been removed from the post as he is being investigated for allegedly keeping a pair of twin sisters as mistresses, local authorities confirmed Sunday.

Qi Fang, director of public security bureau of Wusu City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has been embroiled in the sex scandal since earlier this week. He was sacked on Saturday, the Tacheng prefecture committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced.

Qi was accused of abusing power to give jobs to twin sisters he has been keeping as mistresses. The informer's post and the photo of two scantly-clad girls in bed quickly became a hit before they were removed from iyaxin.com, one of the largest Internet portals in Xinjiang.

The post also claims that Qi rent a high-end apartment unit for the sisters in downtown Wusu and reimbursed the rent as an official expense.

An official with Tacheng prefecture committee on Sunday said that "part of the online allegations" were true but many claims and details "remain unverified."

But the official did not elaborate on what allegations had been verified.

Qi assumed the police chief post in June last year.

He is the latest to fall in China's sweeping "cyber-anti-corruption" drive that has notably been gathering steam since the 18th National Congress of the CPC held in November.

A handful of officials have been removed from their posts for being caught in sex tape shots, keeping mistresses, and owning large number of properties. All the allegations were exposed on the Internet and the authorities responded with serious probes in relatively short time -- in one case, the sacking came in some 60 hours after the Internet post first appeared.

Experts hope that active participation of the Internet users may push China's anti-corruption drive to a new stage.

Hu Jintao warned at the CPC congress that corruption could lead to the collapse of the Party and the fall of the state.

Xi Jinping, who took over Hu as the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, named corruption on top of the many pressing problems within the Party that need to be resolved in his first speech after being elected to the top post.