Three years after former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei mysteriously disappeared in China, his wife Grace was first interviewed with a bare face, coming out against the country's communist regime saying "this is a tailor-made case, the scale of corruption in China today is extremely serious."
Until recently, the Hongwei family belonged to the bureaucratic elite of the Asian power.
Hongwei, 68, was a very senior member of the local security establishment, holding the position of deputy interior minister in China from 2004 to 2016, when the family moved to Lyon, France, after being appointed president of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), where his nightmares began.
In September 2018, Hongwei landed in China and was taken for questioning by police, but before that he managed to send his wife, who remained in France with their children, a message in which he wrote "wait for a call from me".
A few minutes later, he sent her an emoji in the shape of a knife.
"I have a responsibility to show my face."
Grace Hemingway, wife of former Interpol chief Meng Hongway, Photo: AP
A few days later, Grace reported her husband missing to the French authorities.
While waiting for several months for his trial following charges filed against him for bribery, the Chinese regime expelled the senior official from public life.
Interpol reported at the time that he had resigned.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Meng's wife described China as "a monster that eats its children."
She continued: "This is a tailor-made case. The extent of corruption in China today is extremely serious, it is everywhere," she warned of her residence in France, where the authorities granted her political asylum in light of several threats to her life.
"It's already saddened me beyond the point where I can be even sadder," she said.
"Of course, it's just as cruel to my kids. Every time the kids hear someone knocking on the door, they always look at the expectation that it might be their father. I know they hope the person who comes in will be their dad, but every time, when they realize it's not, they take it down. Their heads are quiet, "she described.
Since September 2018, Grace Hongway has had no contact with her husband and her exposure to the global media has been done with the aim of expanding awareness of the affair.
"I have a responsibility to show my face, to tell the world what happened," she concluded.