Official probed for drug gang links

A vice-mayor in Guangdong province is being investigated in a high-profile case involving his alleged connections to local drugs gangs, and his over-ruling of local police actions involving the gangs.

According to a statement from the Qingyuan Party commission for discipline inspection, Zheng Beiquan, the deputy mayor of Yingde and director of the city's public security bureau, was suspected of breaking various laws to help relatives and friends.

Zheng, 41, a native of Guangdong's Qingxin county, has been put under shuanggui, a procedure in which a Party member is asked to confess to wrongdoing at a stipulated time and place, the statement said.