The corrupt official gave his boss 37 more engineering projects and couldn't help but accept the 200,000 yuan to buy a car.

"Wu Wei, director of the county education bureau, was taken away by the Supervisory Committee. Something must have happened." This news came from Baisha County, Hainan Province, one day in mid-September 2023. A few days later, the Baisha County Supervisory Committee decided to take detention measures against Wu Wei and opened a case for investigation.

On December 28, 2023, the Baisha County Procuratorate filed a public prosecution against the case. In March this year, the court sentenced Wu Wei to ten years in prison for the crime of accepting bribes and fined him 500,000 yuan.

In March 2015, 53-year-old Wu Wei was appointed as the Party Secretary and Director of the Baisha County Education Bureau. This position became a turning point in his life. At that time, the County Education Bureau had just started a project to repair, reinforce and rebuild the teaching buildings and office buildings of primary and secondary schools. Soon, many construction project bosses came to Wu Wei through their connections to ask him to undertake the projects. When they left, they always left a message saying, "After the project is completed, there will be a generous reward."

In November 2015, Zheng Mouzeng, a self-employed engineering boss, met Wu Wei, and the two became increasingly close. During a casual chat, Zheng Mouzeng learned that Wu Wei wanted to buy a car after the car reform, but did not buy it because of lack of money. He immediately said: "Money is not a problem." A few days later, Zheng Mouzeng gave Wu Wei 200,000 yuan to buy a car.

Wu Wei had encountered this kind of thing before, but he didn't dare to cross the line because he knew that accepting bribes was illegal. But this time he couldn't bear to part with the 200,000 yuan, so he accepted it after comforting himself.

After some time, Zheng Mouzeng came to Wu Wei's office and said, "Director Wu, I heard that a certain experimental school is going to build a comprehensive teaching building. I want to do this project. Please rest assured about the quality of the project. If you can do it for me, I will reward you handsomely."

"As long as the quality and construction period of the project are guaranteed, this project can help you smooth out the relationship." From 2015 to 2020, with the help of Wu Wei, the company affiliated with Zheng Mouzeng successfully won the bid for seven projects including a comprehensive teaching building of a certain experimental school. To express his gratitude, Zheng Mouzeng repeatedly told Wu Wei that he could ask for anything he needed.

One day in March 2019, Wu Wei asked Zheng Mouzeng to meet at a tea shop. After whispering for a while, the two hurriedly left. A month later, Zheng Mouzeng told Wu Wei: "The matter has been settled and the other party is very satisfied." It turned out that Wu Wei asked Zheng Mouzeng to invest in decorating the house for his lover. Zheng Mouzeng invested a total of 165,600 yuan in the decoration of the house.

Zheng Mouzeng knew that he was able to get so many projects thanks to Wu Wei's help. One day in May 2023, Zheng Mouzeng asked Wu Wei to meet him at a hotel and gave him a bribe of 500,000 yuan. Wu Wei said: "Please keep this 500,000 yuan for me first, and I will take it when I need it in the future."

"I gave money to Wu Wei, firstly to thank him for helping me to undertake those projects, and secondly to hope that he would continue to help me," Zheng said bluntly to the investigators. Wu Wei received a total of 865,600 yuan in bribes from Zheng.

During the eight years that Wu Wei was in charge of the Baisha County Education Bureau, he monopolized all the power, including small powers, especially matters of engineering construction, for which he had the final say.

One day in June 2018, individual engineering project owner Zhan Mou Sheng heard that a school was going to build a sports field. In order to get this project, he thought of Wu Wei's brother-in-law Li Mou Sheng.

A few days later, Zhan invited Li to dinner and asked, "Can you ask Director Wu to help me undertake the construction project of a school sports field?" "It's a small matter. I can just give him a heads up." Li agreed readily.

From 2018 to 2021, Wu Wei used his power to help Li Mousheng successively undertake 12 engineering projects, including a school sports field and a central school teaching building. Li Mousheng subcontracted all these 12 engineering projects to Zhan Mousheng. In order to thank Wu Wei, Zhan Mousheng entrusted Li Mousheng to give Wu Wei a bribe of 800,000 yuan three times.

At the beginning of 2018, a primary school circular track surface renovation project had been approved and was about to be put out to bid. The project owner Zhong approached Wu Wei and asked him to undertake the project. After several discussions, Wu Wei felt that Zhong was quite sincere and agreed to hand over the project to Zhong's affiliated company. In order to ensure that Zhong's affiliated company won the bid, Wu Wei made a clear request to the bidding agency: "Give the project to Zhong's affiliated company."

From 2018 to 2020, Wu Wei helped Zhong to undertake 37 engineering projects. To express his gratitude, Zhong gave Wu Wei a total of 850,000 yuan twice.

In addition, from 2018 to 2020, Wu Wei also used his position to help Zheng Mouming undertake five projects, including a primary school sports field and campus cultural renovation project, an experimental school sports field and other ancillary projects, and helped the project owner Wang Mou undertake a primary school comprehensive building project. When Zheng Mouming and Wang Mou offered to give him 500,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan in bribes, Wu Wei told them to keep the money with them first and take it when he needed it in the future. Wu Wei also helped the project owner Chen Mou undertake a school's new board house public toilet procurement project and a central school outdoor fire protection project, and received 120,000 yuan in bribes from Chen Mou.

On September 11, 2023, Wu Wei was investigated by the Baisha County Supervision Committee for suspected serious violations of discipline and law. He truthfully confessed the facts that the county supervision committee had already known that he had accepted bribes from Su Mouan and Wang Mouxing: "From 2019 to 2020, I helped Wang Mouxing and Su Mouan to undertake 5 engineering projects. In May 2021, Wang Mouxing gave me a bribe of 500,000 yuan. Before the Spring Festival, Su Mouan asked Wang Mouxing to give me 500,000 yuan. In the first half of 2023, Su Mouan gave me a bribe of 800,000 yuan. I asked him to deposit it first and ask him for it when I needed it in the future." Then, Wu Wei took the initiative to confess the fact that he had accepted bribes from Zheng Mouming and seven others, which the county supervision committee had not known about.

The case was heard in court on January 15, 2024. In court, Wu Wei had no objection to the criminal facts, evidence, charges and sentencing recommendations alleged by the procuratorate, and expressed his willingness to plead guilty and accept punishment, and asked the court to reduce the punishment.

The court found out after trial that from 2015 to 2023, Wu Wei used his position as Party Secretary and Director of the Baisha County Education Bureau to help Su Mouan and others to undertake engineering projects, and directly or indirectly illegally accepted bribes from 9 people totaling 5.1356 million yuan, of which 2 million yuan was unsuccessful. On March 13, the court made a first-instance judgment. The 3.1356 million yuan in bribes that Wu Wei returned were confiscated and turned over to the state treasury. The 2 million yuan in bribes returned by Su Mouan and other four people were confiscated and turned over to the state treasury.