The top prosecutor in China has issued an arrest warrant for Tian Huiyu, the former head of China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd.
Tian, 56, was CMB's president for nearly nine years before being fired by the board on April 18. Later that week, the main anti-corruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), said that he had been placed under investigation for alleged graft.
According to a Wednesday announcement from the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the country's highest anti-graft body had ended an investigation into charges of Tian's bribery, misuse of power, and trade with concealed information.
Since 2013, Tian has served as the leader of CMB in Shenzhen, one of the most successful retail banks in China. In April, he was abruptly and unexpectedly relieved of his duties, which led to a panicked sell-off of CMB's shares.
According to a statement made by CCDI, Tian was dismissed from the Communist Party earlier this month.
"Tian has no bottom line of discipline and had been using 'marketization', 'investment' and 'wealth management' as a cover, colluding power and capital, to collect illicit, illegal gains," CCDI said in the announcement.
The arrest follows President Xi Jinping's warning last week at the 20th Party Congress that the Communist Party would have no tolerance for top cadres who conspire with business and will inflict the harshest sanctions on any offenders.
Since last October, Xi's anti-corruption campaign has resulted in a broad disciplinary crackdown on the country's financial industry. It has increased inspections, including at the highest echelons of the central bank, since April of this year.
Chen Yaoming, a director of the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, was removed from office in November of last year and placed under investigation in April of this year.
Sun Guofeng, the former head of the People's Bank of China's monetary policy department, was removed from office last month after an investigation.
Before earning a master's degree in public administration from Columbia University in the United States in 2002, Tian graduated from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in 1987.
According to a 2013 People's Daily article released when Tian was named as the head of CMB, he worked as a secretary to China's Vice-President Wang Qishan, who was the former head of CCDI, between 1996 and 1997 while Wang served as president of the China Construction Bank (CCB).
Tian served as vice president of the trust investment division of China Cinda Asset Management from 1998 to 2003. This business was established to take up troubled loans from the government-run CCB. He then assumed leadership roles at CCB's regional branches, including those in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
