Gu Junshan

Gu Junshan

Gu Junshan (谷俊山) was a former lieutenant general and deputy logistics chief in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). A corruption probe against Gu has not been officially acknowledged, but there has been widespread media coverage in January 2014.

Biography

Born in October 1956 in Puyang, Henan Province, Gu joined the military in 1971 after finishing junior high school. He began handling military business operations in Puyang in 1985 and rose during the next decade to oversee logistics in the area.

He became deputy chief of the PLA General Logistics department in 2009.

Gu has not been seen since early 2012 and his name disappeared from an official list of his logistics department's personnel and eventually from the Defense Ministry's website. He reportedly lined his pockets through huge kickbacks in transfers of military land at premium locations throughout China.

In Shanghai, Gu allegedly got a 6 percent kickback after a piece of military land was sold for more than 2 billion yuan (US$330 million).

Gu owned dozens of apartments in central Beijing, and his mansion in his hometown Puyang housed several gold artworks. The mansion, modeled on the Forbidden City, Beijing's former imperial palace, covered 1 hectare and was dubbed the "General's Mansion" by locals.

At night of Jan. 12, 2014, investigators raided the mansion and hauled away four truckloads of plunder, including gold statues and boxes of expensive liquor, alleged to be part of Gu's ill-gotten gains.

Gu's brother — who had a home next to Gu's in Puyang, with the two sharing a long basement filled with expensive liquor — was arrested in August on suspicion of bribery.