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Flies and Tigers | 抓蝇打虎

Former official with ‘tower of cash’ admits taking US$32.7m bribes

By Li Qian | December 30, 2015, Wednesday | Print Edition

A FORMER senior energy official, found to have hidden more than 200 million yuan in cash at his home, yesterday admitted to taking bribes worth 211.7 million yuan (US$32.7 million) and amassing another 131 million yuan from unknown sources.

Wei Pengyuan, former deputy head of the coal department of the National Energy Administration, was appearing at Baoding Intermediate People’s Court in north China’s Hebei Province charged with helping others in project approvals and assessments between 2000 and 2014.

In return, he received 103.47 million yuan, 7.75 million euros (US$8.5 million), US$2.35 million and HK$400,000 (US$51,612) in cash, along with 4,100 grams of gold, three cars, a house and other goods, prosecutors said.

“I feel ashamed of myself and full of remorse,” Wei told the court. “I wasn’t loyal to the Party. I didn’t set a good example for my child. I didn’t cherish my life. I am so regretful that greed dominated my thoughts. The fortune didn’t make me feel at ease and contented. Instead, I felt sinful.”

The court didn’t announce a verdict yesterday.

Wei’s case came under the spotlight in May 2014 when there were reports that so much cash had been seized from his home that four of the machines which were used to count it had overheated.

Later, Xu Jinhui, anti-bribery chief of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, confirmed that investigators seized more than 200 million yuan in cash, the largest amount of bribes in cash they had uncovered since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949.

Media reports at the time said that if was all in 100 yuan notes, it would make a pile some 230 meters high, or almost a third of the height of the Shanghai Tower, China’s tallest building.

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