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Xi’s enforcers are hunting down party insiders accused of tipping off unannounced purges

Secrets from Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s disciplinary purges keep surfacing online, defying a crackdown that has ensnared millions of people—and highlighting how deeply embedded graft and disloyalty remain within the Communist Party.

With the party detaining tens of thousands of officials each year, an underground market for corruption gossip has emerged on Chinese social media, where shadowy users drop hints on who’s getting purged next—in return for fees and clicks, state media said.

Such tipoffs can help suspects beat charges or evade arrest while enabling outsiders to make well-timed trades—a Chinese twist on concerns in the U.S. about political insiders cashing in on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket.

Party authorities have voiced alarm about the phenomenon while trying to hunt down leakers. The corruption-probe tipoffs also raise questions about the effectiveness of Xi’s crackdown, which has disciplined more than seven million people for misconduct such as taking bribes, defying policies and divulging secrets since late 2012.

“A small number of officials leak information in violation of regulations,” Banyuetan, a magazine published by the official Xinhua News Agency, said in a recent report. “This data is then resold through online groups—passing through multiple hands—thus forming a covert and illicit supply chain.”

Using such leaks, some social-media accounts “have been ‘predicting’ the downfall of government officials in advance using methods such as posting résumés or using homophones and coded language” that hint at a suspect’s identity, said the report. These cryptic posts are meant to skirt secrecy rules, since officials’ names and résumés generally aren’t considered sensitive.

Some profiteers monetize these leaks by selling access to social-media chat rooms where tips are shared, with fees ranging from a few dozen yuan to several hundred yuan, according to Banyuetan—that is, from a few dollars to about $120.

Others try to boost views to earn payouts. “Some even exaggerate corruption details and fabricate scandals to attract traffic,” the magazine said.

In one case, investigators found a party bureaucrat in the southern city of Guiyang who colluded with six relatives to operate nine WeChat social-media accounts that published hints about forthcoming promotions and purges, the magazine said.

The opacity of China’s political system makes tipoffs on ongoing probes highly valuable. With early notice, suspects and their associates can destroy evidence, spirit away illicit assets and flee. Authorities may be forced to detain suspects prematurely, weakening their legal case. Party insiders could gain a head start in lobbying for imminent job vacancies. Investors can short stocks that would likely be affected by a coming purge.

Chinese researchers say corruption probes can trigger a market selloff on companies seen as linked to a suspect or affected by an industry crackdown. China Merchants Bank, one of the country’s largest commercial lenders, saw its share price plunge in 2022 after the party announced an investigation against the bank’s former president, Tian Huiyu.

“Corruption investigations significantly increase the stock price crash risk for listed firms in provinces where investigated senior officials work or have worked during the period when these officials were investigated,” a group of Chinese academics wrote in a 2021 study.

“Anticorruption investigations are conducted with a high degree of secrecy, and given the central role of anticorruption in China’s elite politics, there is persistent demand for insider information from individuals motivated by political curiosity, commercial interests, or risk management,” said Ling Li, a Chinese politics and law lecturer at the University of Vienna.

“The selective and premature disclosure of investigative information might have been used to signal to potential bribers” that some party insiders are willing to trade privileged information for private gain, Li said. To minimize risks, the leakers “confined themselves to publishing highly suggestive posts that, in themselves, did not cross any obvious legal line.”

The party has long grappled with venal insiders—including antigraft inspectors—who leak secrets about corruption probes in return for bribes. In 2019, the party restructured its top disciplinary watchdog to ensure that separate groups of inspectors handle routine supervision, investigations and internal trials, aiming to prevent anyone from wielding excessive authority that can be exploited for personal gain.

Yet Beijing has continued to bemoan the presence of “moles” and bad apples among its enforcers. The party imposed formal penalties on more than 7,800 discipline inspectors in 2023, the highest annual total reported under Xi.

Regardless, Xi has refused to allow greater transparency and adopt more checks and balances in the bureaucracy, which some experts say are needed for cleaner governance—but would undermine authoritarian control.

Beijing’s tightening scrutiny on graft-probe leaks mirrors similar inquiries in the U.S., where regulators are examining suspected profiteering on information from within the Trump administration amid a betting boom on prediction markets.

Following the Banyuetan report, other state media rushed to denounce insider leaks and demand a crackdown—such as by strengthening censorship algorithms and issuing stern punishments.

“Anticorruption efforts mustn’t be exploited, and the chaotic practice of ‘hyping up corruption’ must be curbed,” the official party newspaper of Sichuan province said in a commentary.

Xi’s purges have entrenched his authority as China’s most dominant leader in decades. Launched to curb corruption when Xi took power in 2012, it has since become a permanent campaign that keeps officials loyal and on their toes. Party authorities disciplined 983,000 people last year, the highest annual total on record.

On social media, leaks of impending purges often appear in subtle forms. Some posts use names or phrases with a similar pronunciation to the targeted official’s name, or simply post the official’s résumé.

In July 2025, a WeChat account, whose name can translate as “Yanglan Lake Insider,” referring to a place in Hubei province, published a brief post featuring a photograph and résumé of Zhou Xianwang, a former vice governor of Hubei and onetime mayor of its capital, Wuhan. A similar post appeared two days later on the video-sharing platform Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, from a user named “Brother Zihao from Guangdong,” the southeastern province.

The day after the Douyin post appeared, the party’s top internal watchdog announced that Zhou was under investigation for alleged severe misconduct. The party expelled Zhou in January for alleged corruption, and prosecutors have since opened criminal proceedings against him.

“Brother Zihao” followed up with more tips, some coming days or even weeks ahead of the formal announcement. In late November, the account posted an image of Ye Hongzhuan, a retired veteran official in Hunan province, along with a teacup emoji—seemingly suggesting that Ye had been “invited to tea,” a euphemism for an interrogation. Authorities announced a probe against Ye roughly a week later.

Then in March, “Brother Zihao” published cryptic posts featuring the names and images of three bureaucrats—two senior municipal officials in Guangdong’s Zhanjiang city, and a former chairwoman of a state-backed women’s federation in the southern province of Guizhou. Party authorities announced probes against each official over subsequent weeks.

Users praised “Brother Zihao” for the accurate tips, the most recent including one in July about a Guangdong official nearly two weeks before a probe was announced against him. Authorities, however, see such leaks as proof that “moles” were peddling secrets for profit.

The party’s attempts to plug such leaks have become a game of cat and mouse. One investigator told Banyuetan that authorities lack legal grounds to probe or penalize people who merely publish officials’ résumés on social media. When regulators shut down some offending WeChat accounts, the operators simply migrated to other platforms such as Douyin, Banyuetan said.