BEIJING — Neil Heywood, the British businessman at the center of a scandal involving the former Chinese Politburo member Bo Xilai, allegedly transferred large sums of money overseas illicitly for Mr. Bo’s family before his death in November, one person familiar with an inquiry into the case said on Monday.  The disclosure, which was previously reported by Reuters, would help explain the nature of the relationship between Mr. Heywood and the Bo family, in particular Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, who is in custody on suspicion of criminal involvement in Mr. Heywood’s death. The Chinese government said last week that an economic conflict between Mr. Heywood on one side and Ms. Gu and her son, Bo Guagua, on the other had intensified before Mr. Heywood’s death.  Mr. Heywood was found dead on Nov. 15 in Chongqing, a huge city with the status of a province, where Mr. Bo had been the Communist Party secretary since 2007. The scandal erupted in February after his top aide and former police chief, Wang Lijun, fell out with Mr. Bo and fled to an American consulate about 170 miles away. He alleged that Ms. Gu had ordered that Mr. Heywood be poisoned. Mr. Wang later left the consulate and is now in the custody of the Chinese authorities.  His accusations relating to Mr. Heywood’s death, which have slowly emerged since he entered the consulate Feb. 6, have fed a long-running drama that has mesmerized the Chinese public and embarrassed British diplomats, who were slow to react to suspicions among Mr. Heywood’s acquaintances about how he had died.  The allegations have created the biggest political turmoil in China in years, and cast a long shadow over the Communist Party’s plans for a smooth transfer of power this year, when many of the top leaders will be replaced. Before he was stripped of his positions over the last month, Mr. Bo was angling for a seat on the nine-member Standing Committee of the Politburo, China’s top leadership body.  The Reuters news service reported on Monday that Mr. Heywood apparently had died at the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel, on a hilltop overlooking Chongqing’s Nan’an district. The Communist Party chief in Nan’an, where Mr. Bo exercised particularly strong influence, was detained for questioning early this month; the official has been a staunch ally of Mr. Bo.  Reuters reported that Ms. Gu and Mr. Heywood had argued about how much money Mr. Heywood was to have received for secretly moving a substantial amount of money out of China.  Chinese officials have been prosecuted in the past for moving illicit gains out of the country, where the government is hard-pressed to find or freeze the funds.  Nanshan Lijing staff members said on Monday that they had no recollection of a guest’s death in November. A security guard blocked access to villas behind the main hotel, telling a reporter that a meeting was in progress.  Wang Kang, a Chongqing filmmaker, quoted friends of the Bo family as saying Ms. Gu had “felt betrayed by” Mr. Heywood, a 41-year-old business consultant who had ingratiated himself with the Bo family since the 1990s, when Mr. Bo was mayor of Dalian in northeastern China.  Mr. Heywood helped Mr. Bo’s son Guagua gain admission to elite British schools, according to Mr. Heywood’s friends. That role apparently grew into a business relationship as Mr. Bo rose through the Communist Party hierarchy. Besides acting as a conduit for the family’s funds, one source said, Mr. Heywood portrayed himself as a link between British business leaders and Mr. Bo.  Before Mr. Heywood’s death, Ms. Gu, Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang, the former police chief, were all under some form of scrutiny by the party, according to people with ties to party officials.  According to one party academic with connections to the Bo family, Mr. Wang wrote two letters of complaint to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection accusing Ms. Gu of transferring amounts up to several hundred million dollars out of the country. It was not known exactly when Mr. Wang had made those complaints, but they did not mention Mr. Heywood, the scholar said.  The commission did not officially take up Mr. Wang’s complaints at that time, the scholar said. But he and others said the pressure of inquiries by the commission, the party’s top disciplinary body, helped touch off a high-stakes vendetta between Mr. Wang and Mr. Bo.  In two phone conversations before he was dismissed as Chongqing’s party secretary in mid-March, the academic said, Mr. Bo said he was confident that he could withstand an investigation over corruption and other offenses.  “If they let me continue working, I’ll continue working,” he said Mr. Bo had told him. “If not, it’s no big deal.”
The disclosure sheds new light on the relationship between Neil Heywood and Bo Xilaiâs family, in particular Mr. Boâs wife, who is suspected in Mr. Heywoodâs death.