China is preparing a criminal case against the wife of jailed former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei in an effort to retrieve millions of yuan in bribes that Beijing alleges the couple amassed before she secured asylum in France.

Meng -- a former top-ranking public security official in China -- was sentenced by a Chinese court in January 2020 to more than 13 years in prison for bribery, in a case that shook the international police organisation.

He had vanished on a visit to China from France, where he was based with Interpol, before Beijing announced 10 days later that he had been detained on corruption charges.

His wife Grace Meng has since been an outspoken critic of China's handling of the case and the country's opaque legal system.

State news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday that Chinese authorities are now also targeting Grace, known as Gao Ge in Chinese.

It said only 1.7 million yuan ($266,000) worth of illegal gains from a stash totalling 14.6 million yuan that the couple obtained had been recovered, citing officials from a court in the northeastern city of Tianjin.

"Most of the bribes Meng accepted had been kept in the hands and at the disposal of his wife, Gao, believed to be in France," Xinhua said.

The former Interpol chief had expressed a willingness to assist authorities in retrieving the remaining funds from his wife, the news agency added.

The French government granted Grace Meng and her two children political asylum in 2019.

In an interview with the Associated Press last month, Grace called China's government "the monster" and said the charges against her husband were trumped up.

"It's a fake case. It's an example of a political disagreement being turned into a criminal affair," she told AP.

Meng Hongwei is among a growing number of Communist Party cadres caught in a huge anti-graft campaign spearheaded by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which critics say has also served as a way to remove political enemies.

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