Guangzhou Police in Guangdong Province, China, announced yesterday (March 21) that Xie, who was suspected of trafficking multiple children and went by the nickname “Aunt Mei,” has been arrested after evading capture for over twenty years. The investigative journalist Wei Hua, who had been involved in documenting the “Aunt Mei case,” reportedly passed away from a “sudden heart disease” just two days before the official announcement, sparking speculations.
According to a report by the mainland media “Xiaoxiang Morning News” on March 22, the key figure in the child trafficking case who had been on the run for 23 years, known as “Aunt Mei,” was finally apprehended. However, the father of Shen Cong, a child trafficked by her, posted on Weibo, stating that ten years ago, during his desperate search for his missing son, he had received support, hope, and strength from Wei Hua, a journalist from the Henan Radio and Television Urban Channel who had passed away unexpectedly due to a sudden heart disease on the night of March 19 at the age of 45. The report noted that Wei Hua was one of the key reporters of the “Aunt Mei case.”
It was mentioned in the report that the name of journalist Wei Hua was not well-known to the public. He worked as an undercover investigative journalist, never revealing his own name in investigative reports, and him and his team used the pseudonym “Urban Gentleman.”
Wei Hua had worked as an investigative journalist for two decades. He had conducted undercover investigations and rescued five trafficked infants, spent 120 days undercover in Myanmar in 2023 to rescue six individuals trapped in a telecom fraud organization, and in 2025, he and his colleagues investigated an underground surrogacy lab claiming to be the “largest in the north,” exposing the illicit activities of illegal surrogacy organizations.
Following the reports in mainland China, netizens left comments such as “regrettable,” “sad,” and “rest in peace.”
On an overseas platform X, many netizens expressed doubts about Wei Hua’s death:
“He was so young, it’s such a waste. Could there be a conspiracy behind this?”
“Dying suddenly after exposing dark forces, and at such a young age. This raises suspicion. Reality is more lamentable than the reports.”
“It shows that there are risks in doing journalism in China, a slight mistake could lead to disappearance, or like this person and Li Keqiang – dying of a heart attack.”
“There are fewer and fewer truly conscientious media professionals.”
“We cannot proceed without a thorough social upheaval in China.”
Some netizens also mentioned, “The hero who exposed the ‘gutter oil’ issue also died suddenly.”
Li Xiang, a journalist from Luoyang TV, was regarded by many as one of the “heroes” who exposed the “gutter oil” problem. In September 2011, the 30-year-old Li Xiang was robbed and fatally stabbed more than ten times on his way home. A few days before the incident, his last Weibo post happened to mention providing clues about the gutter oil in Luanchuan County, Henan. Many suspected he was “silenced.”
In February this year, mainland investigative journalist Liu Hu and his partner Wu Yingjiao were investigated by Chengdu officials for alleged “false accusation and entrapment” and “illegal business operations” because they had published articles on a self-media platform exposing illegal activities of the Pujiang County Party Secretary during investment attraction processes. After Liu Hu was arrested, it attracted international attention and condemnation. He was granted bail pending trial on the eve of the Chinese New Year.
Commentator Li Linyi stated that the CCP government will not protect journalists who take risks in investigating criminal forces, as officials at all levels of the CCP are umbrellas for those criminal forces, with the CCP itself essentially being a criminal gang governing the country. If the CCP were to fall, with press freedom and civilian oversight of public power in China, many social issues could be more easily resolved.
The international press freedom monitoring organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released the “World Press Freedom Index” report for 2025 last year, ranking China 178th out of 180 countries and regions globally, making it one of the worst countries for press freedom.