Top procuratorate report highlights graft-busting success

Prosecutors probed about 120 corrupt officials at or above vice-ministerial level and officially charged 105 such officials since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in late 2012, according to the top procuratorate.

Among the "tigers" felled by the anti-graft campaign were Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; Sun Zhengcai, former secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CPC and Ling Jihua and Su Rong, former vice-chairs of China's top political advisory body, according to the work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate to be delivered at a plenary meeting of the national legislature on Friday afternoon.

In the past five years, another 254,419 officials were investigated for duty-related offences, such as bribery and dereliction of duty, up 16.4 percent compared with the previous five years. About 55.3 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) in economic losses has been retrieved or prevented, according to the report released to reporters ahead of the meeting.

Prosecutors have focused intensely on crimes related to bribery and accused 37,277 people of "hunting officials" - a term used to describe those who try to bribe officials. The number is up by 87 percent compared with the previous five years, the report shows.

Corruption at lower levels has also been resolutely targeted, as 62,715 corrupt grassroots officers were charged in the past five years, such as those in charge of local agriculture, housing demolitions, social welfare and poverty alleviation issues, according to the report.

With China sparing no efforts in fighting pollution in recent years, the number of people probed for ecology-related crimes has also increased. The report shows that about 137, 000 people were charged in the past five years for crimes involving pollution of air, water and soil and importing foreign waste, as well as illegally occupying farmland, destructive mining and illegal lumbering, up 59.3 percent from the previous five years.

Prosecutors have also handled 13,000 public interest litigations involving polluting ecological environments, according to the report.

To prevent financial risks and maintain market order, prosecutors charged 144,000 people with related crimes such as destroying financial management orders or financial fraud, 2.2 times as much as for the previous five years, the report showed.

Moreover, 82,000 suspects were accused of illegally collecting public funds, fund-raising fraud and pyramid scandals, including those involved in the high-profile case of Shanxinhui, a Shenzhen-based company accused of operating a pyramid scheme and the online peer-to-peer broker Ezubao, according to the report.