The central discipline watchdog Wednesday kicked besmirched Tianjin official Pi Qiansheng out of the Communist Party of China, the latest development after two years of rumors about alleged corruption.

Pi Qiansheng

The commission said Pi is being investigated for "serious discipline violations" - including the taking of bribes and abuse of power to facilitate illegal gains for others.

The announcement was the first official word since Pi, once a vice-ministerial-level official, was stripped of power in June 2007.

Last December, Caijing Magazine reported Pi had been placed under "shuanggui" - an extra-legal detention for Party officials, for economic reasons.

Pi was born in Henan province and graduated from Nankai University in 1978 with an economics degree. He started working in Tianjin in 1982, spending more than two decades at the economic zone, where he wore many hats - ranging from general manager of a state-owned development company to director of the zone management committee.

From a vacant plot of land in the 1990s, the Binhai zone evolved into a modern industrial and business district.

Pi was accused of cronyism, Caijing reported.

A close associate who had worked under him since the 1990s, Huo Jinyi, was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of bribery and corruption in October 2007.

When Pi was at the helm of the Binhai zone, Huo was chairman of the state-owned Northern International Trust & Investment Co Ltd.

Pi's case is the latest in a series of scandals in Tianjin dating back to 2004, when Zhang Wanjun, a former director of the greening office for the economic zone committed suicide. Tianjin's former chief prosecutor Li Baojin was arrested for corruption in 2006. And, in June 2007, Song Pingshun, former chairman of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, committed suicide amid a graft investigation.