At the height of his power, Zhou Yongkang controlled police forces, spy agencies, court systems and prosecution offices across China -- and the domestic security czar wasn't shy in deploying his vast assets to crush dissent and unrest in the name of "preserving social stability." During his reign before retiring in 2012, as worsening income inequality and official corruption fueled mass discontent nationwide, Zhou oversaw the domestic security budget swell to surpass that of the two million-strong Chinese military -- the world's largest. As a member of the ruling Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee -- China's top decision-making body -- Zhou was one of nine men who effectively ruled the country of more than 1.3 billion people.
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Zhou arrested as part of corruption probe, expelled from Communist Party
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Zhou Yongkang was a member of the ruling Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee
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He's the highest-ranking official to get caught up in President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign
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Zhou was also a patron of Bo Xilai, a former a fast-rising political star who was jailed for graft
State media reports also indicated that one of Zhou's younger brothers, a onetime farmer, used @placeholder's influence to launch a "crisis management" business and profited from helping people get out of jail, enter police academy and sell steel pipes to state-owned oil fields.