Behind Bloomberg News' campaign to silence its own journalists for reporting on China corruption

It's a story that spans decades, exposes corrupt Chinese politicians and shows the lengths Bloomberg L.P. will go to protect its profit.

It begins in China in 2012, when a team of hard-nosed journalists at Bloomberg News started investigating the ties between the Communist Party and the country's wealthiest citizens.

Their reporting hit a little too close to home and the higher-ups at Bloomberg News killed it, firing the reporter who questioned the decision and attempted to silence his wife by pressuring her for years to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

The incredible story, reported by NPR on Tuesday, untangles the twisty tale behind Bloomberg's decision to cave to threats by China's ruling party because they were worried about repercussions by Beijing. Instead of standing by their reporters, Bloomberg turned on them and took it a step further when it tried to get author Leta Hong Fincher, the wife of then-Bloomberg Beijing correspondent Mike Forsythe, to also keep quiet.

"They assumed that because I was the wife of their employee, I was the wife," she told NPR. "I was just an appendage of their employee. I was not a human being."

A Bloomberg News spokesperson declined to comment to Fox News.