(Yicai) Sept. 10 -- Lin Jingzhen, a former vice president at Bank of China, has been placed under investigation eight months after stepping down. His is the latest high-level case in an ongoing, multi-year anti-corruption sweep at BOC, one of the country's six big state-owned lenders.

Lin is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and is under review and investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Supervisory Commission, the authorities announced yesterday.

He joined BOC in 1987 and worked there for 38 years, becoming VP in March 2018 and executive director a year later. He was also chairman of BOC International Holdings, BOC's investment banking arm in Hong Kong, and BOC International China, its brokerage subsidiary.

The 60-year-old resigned from Beijing-based BOC in January before reaching the retirement age, sparking online speculation. Earlier this month, rumors circulated that Lin had gone missing and that his phone was turned off.

The corruption crackdown at BOC began in March 2023, when Liu Lianke, the bank's former chairman, was put under investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law. He was found to have illegally accepted property worth CNY121 million (USD17 million) and was handed a two-year suspended death sentence last November for accepting bribes and illegally granting loans.

Other BOC executives were caught in the anti-graft sweep afterward, including Wang Jianhong, ex-president of the lender's Beijing branch, Gao Zongsheng, former VP of its branch in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Chen Bin, former chief researcher at the BOC Research Institute, and Guo Xingang, ex-president of the bank's Zhejiang provincial branch.

China has stepped up its anti-corruption efforts in recent years. On Sept. 6, the CCDI and the NSC announced that Yi Huiman was under investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law. Yi served as chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission from January 2019 to February last year, and before that, he was chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione