Interpol requests information from China concerning its missing president

PARIS — Interpol said Saturday it has made a formal request to China for information about the agency’s missing president, a senior Chinese security official who seemingly vanished while on a trip home.

The Lyon-based international police agency said it used law enforcement channels to submit its request to China about the status of Meng Hongwei. Its statement said the agency “looks forward to an official response from China’s authorities to address concerns over the president’s well-being,”

China, in the midst of a weeklong holiday, has yet to comment on the 64-year-old security official’s disappearance. Calls and faxed questions to the foreign and public security ministries went unanswered.

Meng’s wife says she hasn’t heard from him since he left the French city of Lyon at the end of September. France has launched its own investigation. French authorities say he boarded a plane and arrived in China but his subsequent whereabouts are unknown.

In addition to his Interpol post, Meng is also a vice minister for public security in China.

Previously, Interpol had said that reports about Meng’s disappearance were “a matter for the relevant authorities in both France and China.”

The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, has suggested that Meng may have been the latest target of an ongoing campaign against corruption in China.

His duties in China would have put him in close proximity to former leaders, some of whom fell afoul of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign. Meng likely dealt extensively with former security chief Zhou Yongkang, who is now serving a life sentence for corruption.