An executive at Tencent Holdings Ltd., China’s most valuable publicly traded company, was arrested by Chinese authorities as part of an investigation into a high-level corruption case involving one of the country’s former police officers, people couple of the subject said.
Zhang Feng has been under investigation by China’s anti-graft inspector since the beginning of last year for alleged unauthorized sharing of personal data collected by Tencent’s social media app WeChat, people said. They said Zhang was suspected of handing WeChat data to former Deputy Public Security Minister Sun Lijun, who is being investigated by Beijing for undisclosed violations of Communist Party rules.
The investigators are looking at the types of data that Zhang may have shared with Sun and what Sun may have done with them, people said.
Zhang was referred to as a vice president of Tencent in a statement released by the municipal government of Zhangjiakou, a city near Beijing, in which he was described as having met with the city’s mayor in October 2018.
Tencent said that Zhang never held a senior executive position at the company or a managerial position.