Chinese man detained for extorting state firm execs

A man in east China's Jiangxi Province has been detained by police after he tried to extort two state firm executives to recover his losses in futures trading, a local disciplinary organ said Monday.

The man, surnamed Cai, has lost more than 2 million yuan in futures trading since last year. He tried to recoup the money by plotting against executives at state firms that had been visited by provincial disciplinary inspectors.

China launched an open-ended anti-graft campaign two years ago, vowing to fight corruption across all ranks of the Communist Party of China and government. Disciplinary inspectors have been dispatched to a wide range of government agencies and state companies to look for corruption and inappropriate behavior.

Cai wrote intimidation letters to the chairman and general manager of one state firm under inspection, asking the two executives to deposit a total of 160,000 yuan into his account, threatening that he would report their "wrongdoings" to inspectors if they failed to comply.

The two executives turned the letters over to inspectors and reported them to local police. Cai was detained by police on July 12.

Police said that the bank account Cai asked the victims to deposit money into was opened using an ID card that was not his.

The inspector didn't say whether the two executives Cai intimidated had committed disciplinary violations.