X-Men star's disappearance blamed on China's new "anti-corruption" snatch squad

Fan Bingbing is a Chinese megastar who has also appeared in western movies like "X-Men: Days of Future Past"; she has not been seen since June and the smart money has it that she was kidnapped by China's National Supervision Commission (NSC), an "anti-corruption" task force established in 2018, with a reputation for practicing "liuzhi" or "enforced disappearances."

The NSC is the next step in Xi Jinping's longstanding practice of "disappearing" people he disapproves of, including anti-corruption activists and dissidents. Fan Bingbing is accused of tax-fraud.

People held in luizhi detention are kept in secret locations and denied contact with family or legal counsel, and often emerge after giving widely disseminated forced confessions. It's not uncommon for people to die during luizhi custody.

Under the new laws, these sweeping anti-corruption bodies have jurisdiction not only over China's roughly 90 million Communist Party members, but also over a potentially unlimited target group including nearly any government staff, managers at state-owned enterprises, and really anyone if they are deemed relevant to a case of Party concern.

The crimes might include, as with Fan Bingbing, large scale tax evasion or tragically, as with Chen Yong, if you are only wanted in relation to another investigation.

According to Liu Jianchao, head of the Zhejiang supervision commission, those swept up into Liuzhi are typically kept for 42.5 days before being transferred. Although someone can be kept for up to six months, a lot can happen in forty plus days of disappearance.