Beijing: He was the former deputy chief of the all-powerful agency tasked with steering the world's second-largest economy, brought down for corruption by a jilted mistress who blew the whistle.
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As allegations swirled in the Chinese media around the existence of multiple mistresses scattered around the country and the acceptance of multimillion-dollar bribes, Liu Tienan was branded "morally degenerate" by the Communist Party as it expelled the disgraced National Development and Reform Commission vice-chairman from its ranks.
Most intriguing were the circumstances around Mr Liu's capture. One widely circulated but as yet unconfirmed Chinese news report said he was found with multiple airline tickets and fake passports – including an Australian one – as well as a stash of gold bars, rare jade and diamonds.
On Wednesday, a noticeably greyer Mr Liu appeared for his trial at the Langfang People's Intermediate Court, in the northern province of Hebei, more than a year after his arrest.
The court proceedings were blogged live via the court's official Weibo social media account, and received blanket coverage from the country's state media – a sign of the importance the central government has attributed to the case, and its desire to portray transparency and maximise attention for its anti-corruption campaign.
The last trial of political magnitude to be live-blogged was the Bo Xilai corruption trial last September. While the official court transcripts contained numerous explosive revelations around the former Chongqing party boss's family life, politically sensitive remarks were later found to have been omitted and there were criticisms that prosecutors did not fully pursue the complete extent of his corrupt behaviour.
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors said Mr Liu had accepted more than 35 million yuan ($6.4 million) worth of bribes since 2002 in exchange for granting planning approvals for local businesses. In several cases, the money was filtered through his son, Liu Decheng, who is a co-accused in the trial.
Prosecutors said Mr Liu had confessed to all the charges and had displayed a "good attitude" in co-operating with authorities following his arrest.
While Mr Liu's guilty plea may lead to a more lenient sentence and prevent the more embarrassing details around his downfall from being aired, the reports of his array of fake passports serve to highlight the Chinese government's increasingly public fight to stop corrupt officials from fleeing the country and to repatriate those who have.
In July, Chinese police launched an operation dubbed "Fox Hunt 2014", seizing 71 corrupt officials from overseas. It followed 151 similar arrests last year and the Ministry of Public Security said 810 or so economic crime offenders had been taken back from 60 countries since 2008.
A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences report found that between 16,000 and 18,000 corrupt party officials went missing or fled overseas between the mid-1990s and 2008 at a multibillion-dollar cost to the economy. The United States, Canada and Australia are the most popular destinations for the fleeing officials, often dubbed "naked officials" for their tendency to have immediate family and assets stashed overseas so they can leave at a moment's notice.
with Sanghee Liu
