An official accused of misappropriating millions of yuan and accepting massive bribes stood trial on Wednesday in a local court.

The case is believed to involve one of the largest sums of illegal money seen in recent years, the Beijing Evening News reported.

Dong Yuejin, 52, assistant to the general manager of China International Telecommunication Corporation, is accused of pilfering 580 million yuan of public money and of taking millions more in bribes.

He is being tried at the city's No 2 intermediate court.

The court heard that Dong transferred some of the money to his wife's overseas account after she emigrated to the US with their son.

The newspaper reported that Dong met Ma Lianlong, a man with no visible means of support who liked to gamble, in 2006.

Through Ma's introduction, Dong got to know Zhang Zhentao and Wang Kang who claimed to be managers of two import and export companies in Shanghai.

After a negotiation, Dong promised to help the two companies apply for letters of credit from banks to facilitate their businesses.

For his role as a middleman, Ma was paid 0.6 percent in commission for each deal.

To ensure good connections with Dong, Ma handed over bribes worth 910,000 yuan in 2007 and promised to arrange for a job for Dong's niece.

Ma even found Dong a prostitute during a business trip to Shanghai and enticed him to take drugs, the report said.

Dong then abused his power to misappropriate more than 580 million yuan, the court was told. The money was diverted into the account of a company set up by Ma to apply for letters of credit from banks.

The pair's scheme was exposed in 2008 when Dong's company went into liquidation.

Some of the money was retrieved but more than 13 million yuan remains missing, according to the newspaper.

Prosecutors claimed to have found a diary belonging to Dong in which it is made clear that he knew about the illegality of the scheme he had set up with Ma and that he had found out that Zhang and Wang had not paid back their huge bank loans.

Dong wrote that he had considered committing suicide because of the huge losses he had caused his employer.

Dong admitted taking bribes during the court session on Wednesday.

Ma, Zhang and Wang have also been arrested and are awaiting prosecution.

The court did not reach a verdict on Wednesday.