Tonnes Of Gold Worth Up To £520m Found In Chinese Official's Home

A Communist official in China is suspected to have received a rather large amount of gold - 13.5 tonnes to be precise, with a potential value of £520 million ($637m). Not much then...

A video shows investigators sifting through a huge pile of golden bars which are also stacked up on shelving units.

It has been claimed that the 58-year-old may have received the gold bars as bribes before they were discovered in his home during a raid earlier this month.

Zhang Qi is the fella who was housing all this gold - he was a top official in the province of Hainan, South China, working as the secretary of the Communist Party Committee of Haikou and also as a member of the Standing Committee of Hainan Province.

He has since been stripped of both titles by the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, The Sun reports.

In addition to the gold, there was an alleged 268 billion yuan (£30bn/$36.7bn) worth of suspected bribes on the man's account. It is also thought that he was the recipient of multiple luxurious villas as perks.

If these corruption accusations turn out to be true, he would have been the richest man in China, worth more than Jack Ma - the current wealthiest man in the East Asian country - who is worth a reported $37 billion (£30bn).

PA

According to The Sun, if Zhang Qi is found guilty of 'economic crimes' - following the National Supervisory Commission investigation - he could face the death penalty.

Zhang Qi is believed to have joined the Communist Party in 1983 before going on to serve as the deputy mayor of Sanya city and the mayor of Danzhou.

PA

Chinese President Xi Jinping launched an anti-corruption campaign back in 2012 with statistics showing that at least 53 officials have been caught receiving over 100 million yuan (£11.3m/$13.8m) in bribes.

The MailOnline reported that Zhang Qi is the 17th senior official to have been investigated for corruption in China since the beginning of the year.

Topics: World News, News, China, politics

Rebecca Shepherd

I'm Becky - a journalist at LADbible. I graduated with a First Class BA in Journalism before going on to cover criminal court cases, medical tribunals and breaking news for the national media - which inevitably and eventually became as glum as it sounds. Can often be found rocking a bag for life - which I made a 'thing' way before Rihanna. You can contact me at [email protected]

@RJShepherd94