Official's half-billion yuan stash just drop in bucket

Nestled on the southern edge of the lofty Luliang mountain range in Shanxi , the hilly county of Puxian, with a land mass of 1,508 sq km and a population of about 100,000, used to be a poor agricultural backwater even 10 years ago. But the mainland's economic take-off and strong demand for coal over the past decade have brought the county unprecedented riches, as the whole county has been found to sit on geological coal reserves of 18.17 billion tonnes covering 1,360 sq km.

But Puxian, which is under the jurisdiction of Linfen - well known as one of the world's most polluted cities - is nothing special in coal-rich Shanxi, which accounts for about one-fourth of the supply for the mainland's total consumption of coal.

In April, however, it achieved instant national notoriety and has become the talk of the national media and internet chat rooms thanks to a former director of the county's bureau of coal industry.

On April 15, Hao Pengjun was jailed for 20 years for a litany of crimes including tax evasion, illegal trading of explosives, misappropriation of public funds and embezzlement. In a textbook case of official corruption on the mainland these days, his family members were also involved. His wife, Yu Xiangting , formerly deputy director of the county bureau of civil affairs, was jailed for 13 years and his brother-in-law for 12 years.

For mainlanders already apathetic to rampant official corruption, the jailing of Hao and his family members would have been gone unnoticed if it were not for the amount of money involved. The judge fined the trio a total of 324 million yuan (HK$368 million), among the biggest fines involving a corrupt official in the history of the People's Republic.

According to the prosecution, Hao and his family were found to have 127 million yuan in bank deposits and owned 35 residential properties, valued at 170 million yuan, largely in Beijing and also in Hainan. To put this into context, Hao's holdings represented about one-third of Puxian's revenues for last year.