Official under investigation after Web photos emerge

An official in Southwest China is under investigation after sexually explicit photos of him with a woman were circulated on the Internet.

Authorities on Tuesday confirmed that Wu Hong, a law enforcement bureau official for Chongqing's Fuling district, was the man in the photos.

"Fuling's supervision bureau launched a probe on Dec 4," the district's publicity department said in a post on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like service.

The post did not mention whether Wu has been dismissed.

The photos were first uploaded to a forum on Sunday. They show a man in a law enforcement uniform in a hotel room with a woman posing seductively in lingerie.

It remains unclear what Wu's relationship is with the woman.

The person who uploaded the pictures said they were in a storage card he found two years ago.

It's not the first time an official has been investigated after sexually explicit photos and videos surfaced on the Web.

Lei Zhengfu, the Party chief of a district in Chongqing, was sacked last month after a sex tape was spread by netizens.