Sichuan-based CNPC-supplier executives disappear amid widening graft probe

Sichuan Star Cable, a Leshan, Sichuan province-based supplier of the oil and gas giant China National Petroleum Corporation, has said three of its executives have disappeared as party investigators are expanding their graft probes in the province.  

General Manager Shen Ludong and Chief Financial Officer Yang Ping have disappeared and neither the company nor their families have been able to contact them, company spokesman Feng Tao said in a telephone interview from the company’s headquarters in Leshan in Sichuan province.

“We have not been able to get in touch with them,” he said. “We don’t know where they are.” Feng said the two were last seen in their offices on Wednesday last week.

On Friday, the company held an extraordinary board meeting to relieve them from their positions, the company said in a press release. Trading in the company’s stocks on the Shanghai exchange was also suspended that day.

Shen and Yang's fate is starkly similar to the disappearance of the company’s chairman and founder, Li Guangyuan, who is also a delegate to the National People’s Congress. He was last seen by his family members in mid-July, said Feng.