Peter Humphrey and Yingzeng Yu, a married couple, reportedly appeared on Chinese state television in handcuffs and wearing orange vests, with their faces blurred, after police announced the arrest of the two corporate investigators on charges of improperly selling personal information about Chinese citizens.
Humphrey, a Reuters journalist for two decades and fluent in Mandarin, and his wife ran Hong Kong-based fraud-investigation company ChinaWhys.
Several dozen reports prepared by Humphrey and Yu for corporate clients contained information that 'seriously violated the legitimate rights of citizens,' the Shanghai police department said in a statement. It said they were formally arrested on August 16.
The detentions coincided with the announcement in July of an investigation into possible bribery of doctors by employees of pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. That prompted suggestions their case might be linked to Glaxo. Read more
