Cai Esheng

Cai Esheng, a former senior government official at China's banking regulatory commission, was arrested on suspicion of crimes including taking bribes and abusing his power, according to a statement published by China's Supreme People's Procuratorate on Thursday. 

Cai was arrested by the Supreme People's Procuratorate for the reported crimes, and has been transferred to the procuratorial organ for further investigation and prosecution, the statement said. The case is currently being processed. 

Born in 1951 in Central China's Hubei Province, Cai was the vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) from 2005 to 2013. The arrest came eight years after he retired. 

He was expelled from the Communist Party of China for corruption in January. China's discipline regulator, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), has accused Cai of serious violations of law and the Party disciplines, according to a CCDI statement. 

The CCDI used very harsh wording in reporting the results of the investigation into Cai's reported crimes, saying that Cai had lost his ideals. He was also said to have abused his financial regulatory power, disrupted financial market order and seriously corrupted the political ecosystem of the financial sector. 

Cai's arrest is also a manifestation of China's determination and even greater efforts to combat financial sector corruption, with a number of senior financial government officials being investigated and expelled from the Party recently, including the former deputy head of China Development Bank's branch in Hainan, Xu Weihua, and the former deputy head of the People's Bank of China's branch in Fujian, Lin Chuanwei. 

The CBRC was merged with China's insurance industry regulator to become the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission in 2018.