A 58-year-old Chinese official and member of the provincial and municipal party committees from Haikou city, Hainan province, China is under investigation after officers discovered tons of hidden gold inside his home.
Corruption inspectors conducted a raid in Zhang Qi’s home earlier this month and found a vast amount of riches, including thousands of gold bars and bricks weighing 13.5 tons and valued up to 520 million British Pounds ($636 million), according to Daily Mail.
某个人民的仆人落马了!儋州市原市长，三亚市原市委书记，海口市原市委书记张琦（安徽人，中共党员现年57岁）九月六日落马。其住宅内起获黄砖金条金砖数量惊人，现金13.5吨。另查获帐面来路不明资金2680亿，多套千余平方的豪宅……。又一次刷新了记录，令吾辈叹为观止，贫穷再一次限制了我们的想象力！ pic.twitter.com/6hcgKsaFwE
— 猪血旗下 (@h1300062810) September 24, 2019
Inspectors also found 268 billion yuan ($37.4 billion) of suspected bribes on Zhang’s account. There were also cash, antiques, and evidence of a huge portfolio of luxury estates in his house, RT reported.
Zhang, the secretary of the Communist Party Committee of Haikou and member of the Standing Committee of Hainan Province, had both of his titles revoked by the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China after this discovery.
China’s watchdog had reportedly issued a statement on September 6 saying the former official was suspected to have violated the law.
Officials who are convicted of “economic crimes” or corruption in the country could face the death penalty.
Featured image (left) screenshot via YouTube / RT, (right) via inewsweek