Ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang, the most senior Chinese official to be investigated for corruption, has been arrested and expelled from the Communist Party, state media report.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate, China's top prosecuting body, said it had opened a formal probe against him.
Before he retired two years ago, Mr Zhou was the head of China's vast internal security apparatus.
Many of his former associates and relatives also face corruption probes.
Mr Zhou was accused of several crimes, including "serious violations of party discipline", "accepting large sums of bribes", "disclosing party and state secrets" and "committing adultery with several women" as part of corrupt transactions, Xinhua news agency reported (in Chinese).
Mr Zhou, who is in his 70s, has not been seen in public for more than a year.
Analysts say the investigation against Mr Zhou allows Xi Jinping to consolidate his power base, remove people opposed to his reforms, and improve the image of the Communist Party.
Mr Zhou was previously also a member of China's top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee.
A Chinese minister has previously said that the investigation against Mr Zhou would take a long time to complete.
Mr Zhou had enjoyed a close working relationship with former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, who was sentenced to life imprisonment last year on bribery charges.
Bo's wife Gu Kailai was given a suspended death sentence in 2012 for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
Bo's downfall was seen as the biggest political shake-up to hit China's ruling elite in decades, and revealed divisions at the top of the party over how the scandal should be handled.
Zhou Yongkang timeline:
1942: Born in Wu Xi city in eastern Jiangsu province
1964: Joins the Communist Party and spends the next 32 years in the oil sector
1998: Becomes party secretary of China National Petroleum Corporation
1999: Appointed party secretary of Sichuan
2002: Appointed member of the Politburo at the 16th Party Congress; becomes minister of public security later that year
2007: Further promoted to member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo - China's highest state organ
2012: His lieutenants begin to get sacked and investigated; he appears with Bo Xilai at Chinese National People's Congress session
December 2013: His son Zhou Bin is arrested on corruption charges
December 2014: Arrested, expelled from party
Culled from BBC
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