BEIJING, May 22 (RIA Novosti) – Six gang members have been charged with blackmailing Chinese officials by recording videos of them having sex, the country’s official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday, citing prosecutors.
The six were charged with extortion on Monday by a court in the city of Chongqing, southwest China. The group set so-called “honey traps” to lure officials into having sex with women and "secretly recorded their encounters in order to blackmail them from 2008 to 2009,” the agency said.
In January 2013, a total of 10 government officials and heads of state-owned enterprises in Chongqing were dismissed after being featured in sex videos, the report said.
In November 2012, Lei Zhengfu, 54, a former district party secretary, was fired after a tape of him having sex with an 18-year-old woman, who had reportedly been sent to him as a bribe, went viral on the Internet. The hotel room sex screenshots were titled, "Lei, the secretary who accepts sex bribes." Prosecutors have filed corruption charges against the former official, media reports said.
