BEIJING: China's ruling Communist Party will prosecute a former senior city government official who connived with businessmen to build a “crazily luxurious” private club modeled on Beijing's famous “Water Cube” Olympics swimming venue.

Since President Xi Jinping began his sweeping campaign against corruption, waste and extravagance three years ago, the government has released details of the sometimes luxurious lives of officials who are supposed to live on modest sums and lead morally exemplary lives.

Wang Zhengshan, whose investigation the party announced in April, was a senior official in a development zone in the northern port city of Tianjin, but he ignored party discipline orders and got into bed with a group of “illegal businessmen”, the party's anti-graft watchdog said on Thursday. As he approached retirement and fearing his quality of life would go down, he spent money taken as bribes on buying villas, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.

Wang illegally built a private club with three floors covering an area of more than 1,200 sq m, the watchdog added, describing the building as a copy of the Beijing Olympics ‘Water Cube’. "It had a swimming pool, gym, tennis court, restaurant, BBQ pit, flower nursery and high-end imported mahogany furniture - a crazy level of luxury," it said.

Zhengshan has been expelled from the party and his case transferred to the legal authorities, the watchdog added, meaning he will be prosecuted.