Meng Hongwei/File Image
Interpol president Meng Hongwei, who is being investigated by China for a "suspected breach of law", has resigned, the international police organisation announced on Sunday.
Meng has resigned "with immediate effect" and Senior Vice President Kim Jong Yang of South Korea has become acting president, Interpol said in a statement.
Meng, 64, who is also the vice minister of public security, is being investigated by China's National Supervisory Commission for suspected violations of laws, state-run Xinhua news agency reported quoting an official statement.
Meng was last seen in France on September 29, according to reports from France.
The reports quoted an unnamed French judicial official as saying that Meng arrived in China at the end of September but there had been no news of him since.
On Saturday, quoting a source, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post had reported that Meng, the first Chinese head of the international law enforcement agency headquartered in France, was "taken away" for questioning by discipline authorities "as soon as he landed in China" in the last week of September.
However, it was not immediately clear why he was being investigated or exactly where he was being held.
The French police had said on Friday that they have launched a probe for Meng after being contacted by his wife.
Interpol, which is based in Lyon, said on Friday that it was aware of reports of Meng's "alleged disappearance” and that the issue was a matter for the relevant authorities in France and China.
In a report on Sunday, the Post quoted an analyst as saying that the fact Beijing was willing to jeopardise its diplomatic relations by snatching a high-profile official in such a way suggested the stakes were high.
China would have been well aware of those risks before acting in the way it did, Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said.
"I'm pretty sure they would have expected an extraordinary response from the international community before taking such a decision," he told the Post.
"I guess something urgent must have happened. That's why [the authorities] choose to take such immediate action, at the risk of losing face on the international stage. If what Meng is involved in is nothing more than an ordinary corruption case, there would have been no need for the authorities to handle it in such a manner," he said.
While Meng is listed on the website of China's Ministry of Public Security as a vice-minister, he lost his seat on its Communist Party Committee -- its real decision-making body -- in April, the Post reported.
According to his own page on the site, Meng's last official engagement was on August 23, when he met Lai Chung Han, a second permanent secretary of Singapore, it said.
Meng was appointed the head of Interpol in 2016. His appointment also sparked concern about China extending its crackdown on dissidents abroad. He is due to serve until 2020.
Interpol is the world's largest agency facilitating police cooperation with 192 member countries.
(With PTI inputs)
