Meng Hongwei, Former Interpol President, Under Investigation For Corruption: Chinese Authorities

Chinese authorities Monday announced the detained former Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) Chief Meng Hongwei is being investigated for alleged bribe-taking.

In a release, the Ministry of Public Security, China, said police will form a task force to investigate Meng’s associates. It added, “insistence on doing things in his own way means he has only himself to blame for being placed under investigation.”

Meng, 64, was first reported missing late September after he went to China from the Interpol headquarters in France. His wife, Grace Meng, revealed that he sent her a text with an emoji of a knife on the day he went missing. She said she had not heard from him since Sept. 25. His disappearance was made public Friday.

"We are always connected by [our] hearts. He would support me in doing this,” his wife said shortly before the Chinese government confirmed his detainment. “The matter belongs to fairness and justice. The matter belongs to the international community. The matter belongs to the people of my motherland."

The ministry said Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi convened a midnight Communist Party committee on Monday. In the meeting, the attendees pledged “absolute political loyalty” to President Xi Jinping and the party leadership while unanimously expressing support for the probe against Meng.

Just before midnight Saturday, China’s National Supervisory Commission announced Meng was detained due to an unspecified law violation which was being investigated. Meng is a vice-minister for public security in China.

The Ministry said the investigation into Meng was "correct, wise and shows the determination of [President Xi]'s administration to continue its anti-corruption drive."

The Interpol tweeted it received Meng’s resignation from his post.

"Today, Sunday 7 October, the INTERPOL General Secretariat in Lyon, France received the resignation of Mr. Meng Hongwei as President of INTERPOL with immediate effect,” the tweet said. “Under the terms of INTERPOL's Constitution and Internal regulations, the Senior Vice-President serving on INTERPOL's Executive Committee, Mr. Kim Jong Yang of South Korea, becomes the Acting President. … INTERPOL's 87th General Assembly Session (to be held in Dubai, UAE, 18-21 November 2018) will elect a new President for the remaining two years of the current mandate (until 2020).”

Meng is the latest high profile personality to come under fire for corruption since China began its anti-corruption movement. Earlier in June, actress Fan Bingbing disappeared from the public eye, only to reappear again on Oct. 3 with a public apology and a fine of 883 million yuan ($129m; £98.9m) for tax evasion and other offenses. Many other top Chinese government officials and billionaires were similarly taken into custody, said a report in BBC.

Meng was elected Interpol president in November 2016 and he was the first Chinese citizen chosen for the post. He has over 40 years of experience in criminal justice and policing in China, focusing especially in the fields of drugs, counter-terrorism, and border control.

“I’m pretty sure they would have expected an extraordinary response from the international community before taking such a decision,” Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said. “I guess something urgent must have happened. That’s why [the authorities] chose to take such immediate action, at the risk of losing face on the international stage. If what Meng is involved in is nothing more than an ordinary corruption case, there would have been no need for the authorities to handle it in such a manner.”