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Flies and Tigers | 抓蝇打虎

General’s treasures hauled off at night
解放军总后勤部原副部长谷俊山被查家中搜出财物装满4卡车

Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily | January 16, 2014, Thursday | Print Edition

Under the cover of darkness, investigators last year hauled away four truckloads of plunder, including gold statues and boxes of expensive liquor, alleged to be part of the ill-gotten gains of a Chinese general under investigation for corruption, according to a financial magazine.

The investigation highlights corruption within the Chinese military, although details of the case against Lieutenant General Gu Junshan may never be made public because it most likely will go before a military court.

Caixin magazine published several articles on Gu’s rise to a position of great influence within the military and the investigation against him, including details about confiscated goods and a mansion he built modeled on the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Caixin said military investigators catalogued the goods at one of Gu’s mansions during the day but carried out the confiscation at night to avoid being seen by members of the public who might become outraged. The items included a boat, statue and basin all made of gold and countless cases of Moutai liquor.

“About two dozen military policemen in plainclothes queued up in two lines, facing each other. Boxes and boxes of special-order Moutai were transported to the two military trucks parked at the door,” Caixin wrote, describing the scene on the night of January 12 last year.

Gu has not been seen since early 2012 and his name has been removed from the defense ministry’s website.

Last summer, Gong Fangbin, a professor at the PLA National Defense University, confirmed that Gu was under investigation in an online forum organized by the People’s Daily newspaper, saying members of the public were upset with the crimes of Gu and his predecessor.

Wang Shouye, the predecessor, was given a suspended death sentence by a military court in 2006 for taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes.

Caixin said Gu lined his pockets through huge kickbacks in transfers of military land at premium locations throughout China.

In Shanghai, Gu allegedly got a 6 percent kickback after a piece of military land was sold for more than 2 billion yuan (US$330 million).

Land grabbing

In his hometown of Puyang in central China’s Henan Province, his family was known for land grabbing and real estate developments, Caixin said.

Gu’s family built seven riverside villas in Puyang for Gu and his siblings, but the residence best-known locally is the general’s house on a piece of land seized from a local collective, the magazine said.

Modeled after the Imperial Palace in Beijing, the house has two guarding elephants, a fountain, a garden with winding covered corridors, and living quarters for butlers and servants.

Quoting villagers hired to build the house, Caixin said Gu hired artisans from the Palace Museum to paint the interiors.

Caixin said Gu was particularly skillful in courting goodwill among military bosses.

His years in the military’s logistics department coincided with a massive buildup in barracks and housing, Caixin said.

Gu’s wife Zhang Suyan was commissar of the Puyang public security bureau but mainly worked in Beijing for the city’s liaison office. Her task was to receive visitors from Puyang or intercept any locals who went to Beijing to make complaints.

On October 2, 2012, she ordered guards at the office to disperse people complaining about land being seized by Gu’s family for real estate development.

Gu’s younger brother Gu Xianjun was Party secretary of Puyang’s Dongbaicang Village between 2001 and 2010. It’s claimed he sold almost all the village’s farmland to developers.

Caixin said the brother even seized land from neighboring villages.

The family developed businesses and real estate properties around Puyang including high-end office buildings, shopping malls and luxury residences.

Gu Xianjun also operated two factories in Puyang to provide military tents and furniture to PLA troops nationwide. Three brothers-in-law were shareholders and senior executives. Both factories, now closed, had hundreds of workers and their annual output was estimated at tens of millions of yuan.

 

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