Kim Sengupta - John Le Carre plot becomes real life: The mystery of the missing Interpol president

By Dilip -

The head of Interpol, the international police agency, has been arrested after returning to his native China, according to reports, with his current whereabouts unknown. Meng Hongwei, a former minister in the Chinese government, disappeared after leaving the organisation’s headquarters in France last week with claims in China that he was detained after arriving in Beijing.

The South China Morning Post newspaper reported that he was “taken away” by officials “as soon as he landed back in China”, but there was no clear indication why he is under investigation and which particular security agency was holding him. French authorities say they are investigating his disappearance and a person familiar with the investigation said the initial working assumption of Western investigators was that Mr Meng had antagonised Chinese authorities in some way and had been detained as a result.

The Chinese foreign ministry and the public security ministry have not yet responded to questions about what happened to 64-year-old Mr Meng, who has been a member of the Communist Party for decades. Mr Meng has spent 40 years of his working life in the field of counter-terrorism and law enforcement, serving, at one stage, as vice-minister for public security. However, he lost his seat on the Communist Party’s central committee, the main power centre of the organisation, in April this year... read more
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/interpol-meng-hongwei-uighur-missing-chief-china-france-communist-party-a8570926.html

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