Senior general tangled in corruption, magazine says

A senior Chinese military officer owned dozens of homes, gold statues and crates of luxury liquor, Caixin magazine reported in a rare expose of corruption in the armed forces.

The allegations against Gu Junshan, a former lieutenant general and deputy logistics chief in the People's Liberation Army, came as China's leaders ramp up action against official corruption.

He owned dozens of apartments in central Beijing, and his mansion in Puyang, Henan province, housed several gold artworks, Caixin reported on Wednesday after a two-year investigation.

The mansion, modeled on the Forbidden City, Beijing's former imperial palace, covered 1 hectare and was dubbed the "General's Mansion" by locals, the report said.

Officials seized a gold boat, a gold wash basin, a gold statue of Mao Zedong and "crates of expensive liquor" on the premises, it said.

Gu, who joined the military in 1971 after finishing junior high school, began handling military business operations in Puyang in 1985 and rose during the next decade to oversee logistics in the area.

He became deputy chief of the PLA General Logistics department in 2009, and he "profited from the projects and land deals" in which he was involved, Caixin said.

Gu's name disappeared from an official list of his logistics department's personnel in early 2012, and eventually from the Defense Ministry's website. He left his post that year, the magazine said.

A corruption probe has not been officially acknowledged, but there has been widespread media coverage this week.

Gu's brother — who had a home next to Gu's in Puyang, with the two sharing a long basement "filled with expensive liquor" — was arrested in August on suspicion of bribery, the report said.

The account follows extensive reports about government officials who have come under investigation, and after repeated pledges by President Xi Jinping to fight corruption high and low.

In a campaign to cut extravagance and deter graft, the central leadership has issued a raft of bans in the past year, restricting fancy banquets and expensive gifts paid for with public money, for example.

Analysts expect an even stricter clampdown this year.