Villagers in Wukan, Guangdong, who made headlines with their protests over illegal land grabs, have welcomed the preliminary findings of an investigation by the provincial government that confirms their complaints and that local officials had taken bribes.
The special top-level team announced its results on Friday, saying former village party head Xue Chang and other village officials had sold farmland without consent, the China News Service reported.
Besides illegal land deals, Xue and others had taken bribes from land buyers, it said, and officials from the land resource bureau of Lufeng city, which overseas Wukan, also behaved corruptly.
Zeng Qingrong, deputy director of Guangdong's Provincial Supervision Department, who led the probe, said accounts showed Xue and subordinates had taken funds earned from the land deals but shared very little with villagers.
Villagers complained that up to 400 hectares had been stolen by Xue and Chen Shunyi , who headed the village party committee for more than four decades, China News Weekly reported.
Not only were Xue and Chen involved in embezzlement, but they had been negligent, Zeng said. Xue and Chen had allowed Fengtian Livestock Products to occupy 3.5 hectares of land for free, while Guangdong Richvast Group - a livestock and home appliances company - had cheated the village out of at least 4.3 million yuan (HK$5.25 million) in land deals, according to CNS.