Coal official hides 200m yuan cash at home

BEIJING - Prosecuting authorities seized more than 200 million yuan ($32 million) in cash from the house of an energy official, a procurator revealed Friday at a press conference.

Corrupt official deemed 'frugal' by colleagues

The money, the largest amount seized from an individual official since the founding of new China in 1949, was found at the home of Wei Pengyuan, vice director of the National Energy Administration's coal department, according to Xu Jinhui, anti-bribery head of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Wei was put under investigation in May for allegedly accepting bribes.

The administration was under the management of the graft-tainted National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planning body, which has seen 11 officials punished in the first nine months of this year, according to Xu.

Former deputy chief of the NDRC, Liu Tienan, was expelled from the Communist Party of China and questioned over alleged graft practices in August last year. This was followed by the fall of a number of high-ranking corrupt officials in the country sweeping anti-graft campaign.