Weekend Long Read: What It Took to Topple Wang Wenhai

The ex-provincial justice chief’s downfall is the story of black market relic dealers, local police whistleblowers, and a billionaire pedophile rapist who bribed his way out of a death sentence

No accusation ever seemed to stick against Wang Wenhai.

Over a decades-long career in the judicial and graft-busting departments of his home province of Henan, complaints against Wang never stopped, according to people in the central province’s legal and political circles.

There was the time he was accused of causing a car wreck, then arranging for a scapegoat to take the blame.

There was the investigation he oversaw into an ex-chairman of a legendary tobacco company, during which he was blamed for employing tactics that led the chairman’s daughter to kill herself.

Then there were the allegations of retaliation against the police officers investigating a gang of black market relic dealers in Luoyang, Henan, after one of suspects in the case ratted on him to the local cops.

Despite the steady march of officials who have been caught up in China’s nationwide corruption crackdown over the last decade, Wang managed to escape unscathed despite 17 years of formal and informal complaints by a group of Luoyang police officers. While their complaints were always investigated at the time, the outcomes unfailingly cleared Wang of any wrongdoing, several of his accusers later said.

In March 2018, he retired as the director of Henan's Department of Justice at the age of 62. In that position, he held sway over Henan’s justice system for a decade, capping off a career that included 16 years as the province’s discipline inspection department, the agency charged with rooting out corruption among Communist Party officials. Although his investigative abilities won him praise from some, he was feared by many local officials due his aggressive and unorthodox methods. His nickname was the “official of cruelty.”

In the end, it took a seemingly unrelated case of appalling negligence and corruption in Henan’s criminal justice system — as well as the death of a political mentor — to set the stage for Wang’s downfall. The resulting investigation would expose a web of illegal activity and corruption in a story featuring a notorious family of black market relic dealers, Wang’s effort to squash a local police investigation into that family, and a billionaire pedophile rapist who bribed his way out of a death sentence only to resume a very public life for years under a new identity.

The political fallout from the Wang investigation would lead to the downfall of dozens of powerful figures mired in scandals within Henan province’s legal, prison management, and disciplinary inspection systems. Some of it is still ongoing. On Aug. 11, the trial of the family of relic smugglers, the Song brothers, and 41 other defendants came to a close in Luoyang.

Moreover, Wang’s story illustrates how difficult it can be to dislodge powerful corrupt officials, and how indulging corruption can undermine people’s faith in state institutions. “After years of reporting by whistleblowers failed to stop Wang’s continuous rise through the ranks, many officers have been left demoralized,” said Zhang Taixue, a Luoyang police officer who fell victim to Wang’s retaliation.

Retribution in Luoyang

Wang, 67, began his career working at a local casting stone plant in Luoyang. In the 1980s, he joined the Henan Provincial Procuratorate, which acts much like the province’s prosecutor’s office, where he held positions that included clerk, assistant prosecutor and deputy inspector.