Zhou Yongkang

Zhou Yongkang was born in 1942 in Wuxi, Jiangsu. He graduated from the Beijing Petroleum Institute in 1964 and spent over three decades in the petroleum industry, serving as Director of the Liaohe Petroleum Exploration Bureau and General Manager of the China National Petroleum Corporation. He served as Minister of Land and Natural Resources from 1999 to 2002, and as Party Secretary of Sichuan Province from 2002 to 2007. At the 17th Party Congress in 2007, he was elected to the Politburo Standing Committee and appointed Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, a position he held until 2012.

In July 2014, the CCDI announced a formal investigation into Zhou for serious disciplinary violations. In June 2015, the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin convicted him on charges of bribery, abuse of power, and deliberate disclosure of state secrets, sentencing him to life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of all personal assets. Zhou was the first Politburo Standing Committee member to face criminal prosecution in PRC history.